Claiming His Family

Her heart pounded in her ears, drowning out the lapping of the waves against the shore. The humid June air clogged her throat. She climbed the stone steps and stepped onto the porch. A light shone from the back of the house. Pressing a trembling finger to the doorbell, she held her breath.

A chime sounded through the old structure. Footsteps thudded on the hardwood floor inside. The door opened.

“Alyson.” Dex stood silhouetted against light glowing behind him. But even in the shadow she could see his brow furrow, the muscles along his cleft chin hardening in unswerving judgment.

Some things never changed. But his judgment of her didn’t matter. Not anymore. The only thing that mattered now was Patrick. Alyson forced her voice to function. “I need to talk to you.”

Behind his wire-rimmed glasses, his midnight-blue eyes seemed to grow darker, harder. He took in a deep breath and expelled it. “I suppose you heard about the governor’s pardon.”

“Yes.”

“Is that what you need to talk about?”

“In part, yes.”

“Is it something about the testing you did? Something I should know?”

After Smythe’s pardon today it was logical Dex would assume she was coming to see him about the DNA test she’d done—the test that had sprung the rapist from prison. “No. It’s not that. The testing was accurate. The two samples were a match.”

His gaze raked over her, as if trying to determine her true motive for showing up on his doorstep.

“I need your help.” Her words trembled with barely controlled panic. “It’s urgent.”

As if hearing the edge in her voice, he gave a succinct nod and backed from the doorway, allowing her inside.

As she stepped into the house, a shiver stole up her spine. Sights, smells and feelings from the past washed over her. The tickle of dust in her nose as she and Dex hauled box after box of ancient junk from the attic after he bought the house. The scent of paint, varnish and wallpaper paste as they reclaimed the scarred walls and floors. The sound of hers and Dex’s laughter mingling and filling the empty halls. Memories of happy times, before her father’s crimes, before she learned exactly how precarious her position was in Dex’s heart.

She shut the memories out of her mind. They were merely sentimental longing. And she didn’t have time for sentiment. “Can we sit down?”

His eyes narrowed to suspicious slits. “You can’t tell me here?”

Her knees quivered. “Please. I need to sit down. And so should you.”

He raised his brows at her last comment. But instead of grilling her further, he mercifully turned and led her through the house.

She followed, forcing her eyes to move over her surroundings. Forcing her mind to focus on something safer than the panic thrashing inside her, threatening to shred what little control she had.

Dex had changed things since she’d helped him decorate following the renovation. He’d replaced the simple curtains she’d chosen with wood-slat blinds. He’d furnished the rooms with heavy leather instead of the light-fabric couches and chairs she’d helped him select. It was as if he’d obliterated her from his life. As if she’d ceased to exist in his world.

And of course, she had.

But he’d never disappeared from her world. His presence went far deeper than blinds and furniture. She felt his presence every time she looked into Patrick’s blue eyes or kissed that tiny cleft chin.

Patrick.

Panic rose in her throat like bile. Choking it back, she followed Dex into the glassed-in porch they used to sit in together watching thunderstorms come in off the lake. He gestured to a wicker chair. She took her place among the cushions.

He lowered himself into a chair facing her. “We’re sitting. What is it?”

She tangled her fingers together in her lap and took a deep breath. There were so many things that had been said between them. And even more things that had not been said. Before she told him about Patrick, she had to give him some idea why she hadn’t told him about his son. She had to make him understand. “I tried calling you. Several times. After my father was killed. You refused my calls. And you didn’t call back when I left messages on your machine.”

Dex’s brows snapped low over his eyes. “I didn’t want to talk to you, Alyson. I don’t want to rehash the past. I hope that’s not why you came here tonight.”

“You turned your back on me, Dex. And my only crime was that I loved my father.”

He stood and paced the length of the sunporch. He stopped, his back to her, his shoulders obviously tight under his crisp white dress shirt. Slowly he turned to look at her with hard eyes. “Your father was a criminal. The worst kind of criminal. He used his title of district attorney to sell justice. He perverted the entire system. And you defended him.”

“He was my father. I didn’t believe he could do something like that.”

“You didn’t want to believe it. You didn’t want to believe me.”

She swallowed into a dry throat. “That’s why I called. That’s what I wanted to tell you. I was wrong about my father. That I was sorry I didn’t believe you when you first told me what you suspected. But that’s not the only thing I wanted to tell you.”

“What are you saying? Why are you here, Alyson?”

“I wanted to tell you I was pregnant.” She rubbed clammy hands over her jeans and willed herself to look at Dex, to meet his gaze. “I gave birth to our son seven months ago.”

Dex didn’t move. He didn’t even seem to breathe. “I have a son.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement of fact.

“Yes.”

He folded himself into a chair. Taking off his glasses, he rubbed a hand over his face. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You wouldn’t take my calls, remember?”

“You could have come to see me. You could have made me listen.”

She could have. She’d known it then, and she knew it now. If she’d really wanted to tell Dex, she wouldn’t have let anything stop her. “I was afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Afraid you would take him away from me.”

A muscle tensed along his jawline. “Why the hell would you think that?”

She shot him an incredulous look. What she’d done had been wrong, cowardly. But she’d had reason. “Because you hated me, Dex. You were so hard and uncaring and judgmental. You shut me out of your life and wouldn’t give me a second chance. And after what my father did, there isn’t a judge in Dane County who wouldn’t be biased against me in a custody fight, wrong or not.”

“So you thought I would use your father’s sins to convince the court you were an unfit mother?”

“I couldn’t take the chance.”

His face flushed with anger. Cords of muscle stood out along his neck. “First you believed I was lying about your father, then you believed I would rob my son of a mother. What kind of a rotten SOB do you think I am?”

“I don’t— I didn’t— I was afraid.”

“You should have trusted me to do the right thing. You should have damn well told me.”

She sat still and let his anger buffet her. He was right, she’d known it in her heart all along. She should have told him. Despite her fear. Despite the risk. “I’m here now. I’m telling you now.”

“Why are you here now, Alyson? Why did you pick tonight of all nights to tell me I have a son?”

“Because…” She forced the words through the thickness in her throat, through the fear tightening her lips. “Because he’s gone.”

Chapter Three

“Gone?” Dex’s heart stuttered in his chest. He shot up from his chair, muscles tensed to fight. “What the hell do you mean?”

Alyson took in a shaky breath as if trying to hold back tears. “I went into Patrick’s room to check on him, and Smythe grabbed me. He pressed a chloroform-soaked cloth over my face. When I woke up, Patrick was gone. Smythe took him.”

“Smythe? Are you sure?” Dex had been living and breathing Andrew Clarke Smythe in the months since the DNA match had been made. But to now learn he had a son, and that Andrew Clarke Smythe had kidnapped him, was too surreal to absorb.

“Smythe called me. Somehow he knew you were Patrick’s father. He took our baby to get back at you for convicting him two years ago.”

Rage, pure and hot, surged through Dex’s blood. Smythe had kidnapped his son. His son. If the son of a bitch wanted to make things personal, he’d succeeded. And he’d soon wish he hadn’t. If Dex had anything to say about it, the scum would be strung up before daybreak. Crossing to the door in three strides, he left Alyson huddled on the porch. His footsteps thundered down the hall, echoing on the hardwood floor like the beat of war drums. Reaching the library, he circled his desk and reached for the cordless phone perched on the credenza.

“Wait.”

Finger poised over the number pad, he looked up into Alyson’s emerald eyes.

“Smythe told me if we got the police involved, I would never see Patrick again.” Her voice broke. Her eyes filled with tears, but she didn’t let them wind down her cheeks. “If you call the police, he’ll find out. He said he has sources. He could have someone watching us right now.”

She was probably right about Smythe’s sources. Heir to Smythe Pharmaceuticals, the poor little rich boy had endless money at his disposal. And money could corrupt even the purest police department. Or district attorney’s office. Dex had seen it happen.

Expelling a long breath, he set the cordless phone on the desk and studied her face in the library’s bright light. Fine lines framed her mouth and eyes. Shadows lurked in the hollows under her cheekbones, making her normally smooth face appear almost gaunt. He’d seen these signs of stress many times in his work. Hell, he’d grown up surrounded by desperation. “So what else did Smythe say?”

“I have a tape. I recorded part of what he said.” She pulled a tiny cassette from her pocket and held it out to Dex with shaking fingers.

Dex took the tape from her hand. After rummaging through his desk, he produced a microcassette recorder and slipped the tape inside. He pushed the play button.

Andrew Smythe’s voice wound through the library, smooth as a snake’s hiss. Dex had heard it many times in press conferences after court, in pleas from prison, and it always sounded the same. No fear. No pity. Nothing but an unfeeling smugness that set Dex’s teeth on edge.

Much more striking was the sound of Alyson’s voice. So naked. So desperate.

Dex tried to steel himself against the vulnerability in her voice. He tried to focus on Smythe’s words. On what he was saying. Only when the tape ended did he allow himself to look at her.

Her eyes searched his, desperate for answers. Answers he couldn’t give.

He ejected the cassette. “That’s Smythe, all right. But there are no threats on the tape. Nothing I can use to convince a judge to grant an arrest warrant.”

Her gaze fell to the desktop. “I must not have pressed the button soon enough.”

“What did Smythe say? Exactly. Think.”

“He said I should tell you that Patrick is your son.”

He gritted his teeth. If Smythe hadn’t demanded she tell him about Patrick, he never would have known. That was clear enough. And that knowledge stabbed into him with the force of a sharp blade in malevolent hands.

He clamped down on the bleeding. What Alyson would or wouldn’t have done wasn’t important anymore. “What else did he say?”

“That he’d be in touch with us. And he’d let us know what to do next.”

Dex grimaced. That’s what he was afraid of. Leveling her with hard eyes, he shook his head. “I’m not playing a part in any twisted puppet show Smythe has planned.”

Her eyes widened. Leaning toward him, she gripped the edge of the desk. “If we do what he says, he’ll give Patrick back.”

“Smythe has no intention of returning Patrick.”

“But he said—”

“I don’t care what he said. He’s not going to give Patrick back to us, even if we play by every one of his damn rules. Smythe wants to humiliate me, to dominate me, to win. That’s what he’s about. Not fairness. Not keeping his word.”

“He’ll—” She swayed, clutching the desk for balance.

Dex circled the desk. He slipped his arm around her shoulders and propped her up.

After guiding her a few steps, he lowered her into a chair. The soft scents of chamomile and roses surrounded him, a bittersweet memory. Love. Trust. Things he’d once hoped they had together. Things they’d never really had at all. Finally he straightened, spun away from her and paced across the floor.

She gripped the chair’s leather arms and held on. “We can’t take the chance, Dex. We have to do what he says. I can’t lose my baby.”

“We aren’t going to lose him.” Though his voice barely rose above a whisper, it rang with the determination he felt deep in his gut. “I know Smythe. And what I don’t know, I’m damn well going to find out. I’ll get our son back. If you want to help, you’ll have to trust me for once in your life.”

Alyson raised her chin. Tears glittered in her eyes, making them sparkle like emeralds. Her lips tightened. “Why? What do you want me to do?”

Just as he’d thought. She didn’t trust him any more now than she had the day he’d told her that her father was selling plea bargains. An ache crept up his spine and settled in his shoulders. More than a year had passed since he’d last seen Alyson. His feelings of bitterness and betrayal should be dead and buried by now. But they’d returned the moment he’d opened the door tonight and seen her distraught face. Smelling her scent and hearing the vulnerability in her voice had only deepened the ache.

And now to learn he had a son. They had a son. Together…

Pressure constricted his chest, tighter than a steel band. He shoved the thoughts and feelings aside. He couldn’t let himself think about what having a son might mean. He had to focus. He had to formulate some kind of plan. And the first part of that plan was to ensure Smythe didn’t have the opportunity to strike again. “I want you to go home. Try to get some sleep. I’ll arrange for plain clothes officers to watch your house. Smythe and his sources will never know they’re cops.”

Her eyes grew wide with alarm. “You can’t shut me out. I need to help find Patrick.”

“I’m not shutting you out. I’ll call as soon as I learn anything.”

She raised her chin in that determined way of hers and shook her head. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“You need to be home in case Smythe calls.”

“I forwarded the calls to my cell phone. If he calls, I can answer wherever I am.” She dipped a hand into her pocket and pulled out a phone as an offer of proof. “I know you don’t want to have anything to do with me, Dex. For God’s sake, you didn’t before you knew I didn’t tell you about Patrick. But I can’t just sit at home knowing that monster has him. Surely you can understand that.”

He could understand far too much about how Alyson must be feeling, even after all this time. That was the problem. And it would be even more of a problem if Smythe had figured that out. And from all indications, he had. “If you stay home, I can arrange for protection. The police can turn your house into a regular fortress. If you don’t, you’ll make things much tougher.”

“Protection? For me?”

“Yes, for you. You said Smythe used chloroform on you when he broke into your house tonight.”

“Yes.”

“I’m betting he was also carrying rope.”

He could tell by her expression the answer was yes. She shook her head hard, her auburn hair lashing her cheeks. Obviously she’d guessed where he was going. And she didn’t want to hear it.

Tough. She had to face facts. He had. “Smythe isn’t a kidnapper, Alyson. He isn’t a man who targets children, either. He rapes women. He was planning to get his revenge on me by attacking you.”

Though she seemed to know what was coming, a shudder still shook her.

He fought the need to rush to her side again, to encircle her with his arm and let her lean against him. “Are you okay?”

Gripping the chair until her knuckles turned white, she nodded. “So you think he came after me and stumbled on Patrick.”

“That’s what I’m guessing. He must have figured out Patrick was my child, and that kidnapping him would present an even greater opportunity for revenge.”

“But if that’s true, why didn’t he rape me, too?”

“Do you remember what he did to those other women?”

She pulled back in her chair as if flinching from her own thoughts. “He kidnapped them.”

Dex nodded. “He took them to a private place—a place no one would discover them—and he raped them for hours. His last victim was attacked for days. I’m sure he wanted to do the same to you, but he couldn’t handle kidnapping both you and Patrick at the same time.”

“So he settled for Patrick.”

“For now.” Dex looked her straight in the eye. He hated being this blunt, but Alyson had to face the facts. Smythe had Patrick, and she was next. And who knew what other targets Smythe had on his list? No one or nothing Dex had ever cared about was safe.

“But how did he know about us, Dex? We didn’t exactly announce our relationship from the rooftops. How would he know that you and I were once involved? That Patrick was your child?”

“That’s one of the things I’m going to find out.”

Straightening her spine, she set her chin. “So where do we start?”

“We keep you safe. I’ll post officers outside your house twenty-four seven. And I’ll look into getting you an alarm system. I’ll keep you updated on everything I learn. I promise.”

“No. I’m not going to stay trapped in my house. I don’t care what Smythe is planning. I have to do something to get my baby back.” Tears spiked her lashes, but her voice carried a note of determination.

“Alyson—”

“I mean it, Dex. If you don’t let me help you, I’ll figure something out on my own.”

The thought of Alyson by his side made his shoulders ache like a son of a bitch. But he couldn’t let her walk around without protection.

Thrusting himself to his feet, Dex paced across the room. Damn Smythe and his sick revenge. Damn the governor and his pardons. And damn Alyson for failing to tell him he had a son until the baby was kidnapped.

But most of all, damn him for letting her latest betrayal wound him all over again.

He strode for the door without looking at her. He couldn’t. Looking at her would only make him want to take her into his arms again when he would be far better off to run in the other direction. “There are fresh sheets in the guest room closet. We’ll leave for the prison where Smythe was incarcerated first thing in the morning.”

LOCATED IN GRANT COUNTY, a skip and a jump from the Mississippi River, the Grant Correctional Institute loomed on one of the few plateaus in an area of sharp hills and sweeping gorges—Wisconsin’s unglaciated region. Alyson had always thought the area was beautiful. But today she hardly noticed the scenery whizzing past the car window. She hardly noticed anything except the man sitting next to her, his hands gripping the steering wheel.

Tall and fit, he looked every bit as appealing as the first time she’d met him. The pull of attraction had reached into her chest and grabbed her by the heart when her father had introduced her to his protégé, the newest assistant district attorney in the office. But it wasn’t until she’d talked to him later that night, until she’d seen his intelligence and humor and idealism that she’d lost her heart.

And she still hadn’t recovered it. Of course now it was bloody and wounded. Damaged goods. As was she. Especially in Dex’s eyes.

No matter what had happened between them, she could never regret their time together. She couldn’t even regret her shattered heart. Because if it weren’t for Dex, she wouldn’t have Patrick. And any kind of pain was worth enduring for one moment of holding her little boy in her arms.

Patrick. Her arms ached to hold him. When she’d awakened this morning, she’d felt more alone than the day her father died. Even the months of hiding her pregnancy, going through childbirth and waking at night to care for Patrick hadn’t been as hard. Now Patrick was gone. Now she had no one. And no way of ensuring that her baby was safe and fed and cared for.

She focused on the road ahead. “What are we looking for at the prison?”

“Someone helped Smythe smuggle his blood out. That’s the only way it could have ended up under that woman’s fingernails—the woman who claims she was raped.”

“So we check the prison sign-in sheet?”

“And phone logs. I want to see who he’s been talking to.”

“I assume you’ve questioned the alleged rape victim?”

“The police talked to her when she reported the rape. But she disappeared right after your lab discovered the blood was a match with Smythe’s. Area sheriffs’ departments have been looking for her ever since. That leaves only the person who smuggled Smythe’s blood out of prison.”

“Maybe that person was her. What was her name?”

“Connie Rasula. And it’s doubtful she did the smuggling. The police found nothing to tie her to Smythe. And they looked hard, believe me.”

She could imagine. No one in law enforcement liked to be thrown a curve ball like the one they’d been tossed. If they couldn’t clear up the question about Smythe’s DNA double, DNA evidence could be called into question in courtrooms across the country. But to her, that possibility paled in comparison to the prospect of never seeing her son again. “So we find out who visited him.”

Dex nodded, his gaze glued to the twisting road ahead. “And hope we come away with some answers.”

“Hope? That isn’t very reassuring.”

“It’s all I have. If you have a better idea, spit it out.”

Alyson bit her bottom lip and stared out the windshield as Dex pulled the car up to the outer gate of the prison. Rolls of razor wire glinted in the sun. Sharp and brutal and unforgiving.

She shivered. Just the thought of venturing inside the gates with the kind of men she did her part to put behind bars every day—men like Andrew Smythe—made her skin crawl. But if it meant finding a name on those visitor logs or phone records that would lead them to Patrick, she would walk a gauntlet through the cell blocks alone.

She glanced at Dex. Jaw set and eyes narrowed, he looked ready to fight the world. Despite his anger toward her, despite his judgment of her, despite all that had happened between them, he was with her now. And he would fight with her to find their son.

For the first time in over a year, she didn’t have to fight alone.

DEX LEANED against the stainless-steel counter in the prison vestibule and paged through the visitor’s log, scanning for Smythe’s name in the Inmate Visited column. Alyson stood beside him, close enough to read the names scrawled on the battered pages. Too close. Her body heat made the already warm day that much warmer. Her sweet scent teased his senses. And when she moved her head, wisps of auburn hair trailed across his arm.

Having her sleep under his roof last night had been pure torture. Even though the master bedroom was on the main floor of his house and the guest bedroom was upstairs, she’d been far too close to afford him any semblance of a night’s sleep. And even when he did manage to shut his eyes, dreams of the son he’d never seen haunted him.

He forced his attention to the names in the sign-in book. He had to concentrate. He had to find a lead, any lead, that would take him to Patrick. They’d found nothing of note in the prison’s telephone logs. Only an occasional call to Smythe’s lawyer. He prayed these pages would reveal something. Because they had nothing but Smythe’s word that Patrick would be safe. And Dex knew just how little Andrew Clarke Smythe’s word was worth.

Alyson grasped Dex’s hand before he could turn the next page, her fingers clamping around his. “There.” She pointed to Smythe’s name on the form. Tracing her finger along the page, she landed on the name of the visitor. She exhaled. “Oh. Lee Runyon again.”