Mother by Fate

She had a record that was pages long and included aiding and abetting a bombing. According to her ex she was a meth addict—which explained how skinny she was.

Drawing closer to the shrub he was almost close enough to grab the woman. Trevor Kramer had told him that unless she was in need of a fix, she was pretty good about following orders.

He’d found the comment strange, but gathered Trevor was talking about his ex-wife’s work ethic as Michael had been asking about her employment—anything that could give him a clue to where she might go to hide. So Nicole Kramer followed orders at work, did her job well, when she wasn’t jonesing.

After spending a night in a women’s shelter, where she most certainly wouldn’t have had access to illegal drugs, she was probably desperate for a fix. It was probably what had driven her out of the shelter that afternoon to begin with.

He pulled his gun. He was going to get this woman, no matter what it took.

“I have you cornered, Nicole. I’m only here to help you, to keep you safe. I know Sara.”

No response. He’d seen the shrubs move. He knew she was in there.

Too far in for him to grab her. And he couldn’t just start shooting. Not unless she shot at him first.

She had to come out at some point.

“I’ll wait as long as I have to,” he said, leaning against the corner of the house closest to the end of the line of shrubs. She’d chosen well. The bushes were so dense he still couldn’t see her.

He could hear her, though. Hear the swishing sound as she moved in the dirt. She was crawling through the line of bushes. Intending to come out on the other end around the corner of the house and get away from him while he stood there talking to the shrubs. “It won’t work, Nicole,” he said, moving with the sound of the swishing as the tops of the bushes quivered as she made her way along the house.

The sun was setting behind the house, leaving the front in shadow. Keeping his gaze honed on every little movement, he almost missed the swaying back near the original entrance to the shrubs at the front of the house. She wanted him to think that she was going around back to escape so she could slip out the front.

No, he heard rustling in the back.

But saw movement up front.

She was playing with him. Trevor had said the woman was an escape artist. She’d managed to elude not just the LAPD, but the San Diego Police Department, as well.

She wasn’t going to elude him.

Another sound from the back.

Movement in the front.

She was in one area, and using something to either create noise or movement in the other. At the corner of the house now, he watched both shrub exits. If she was as smart as Trevor had said she was, she’d go out the back. She could hop the five-foot fence into the woods. Maybe even make it to the beach.

Another swoosh, like a body sliding along in the dirt, or a shirt rubbing up against a foundation. He moved toward the sound. If he went in after her, cornered her in the dark, she’d likely shoot him.

He had to be ready to grab her the second she showed herself.

The sound came again. Ignoring the movements up front now, he prepared to jump the woman as soon as she emerged.

He heard the rustle before his brain had a chance to process what it meant. It was in front of him and she was out of the bush and across the driveway by the time he could react. As she fled, he saw the long branch she’d been using to make the sounds. She’d pulled it out with her, dropping it as she ran.

She only had a thirty-second head start. Back the way they’d come. And he knew, as she probably did, that that side of the house wasn’t fenced. She was off in the woods, heading toward the beach, and their little game continued.

Michael chased her until dark. Until after dark. The night was more friend to her than to him. But he was good at what he did.

It wasn’t until she hopped on a bus just as it was pulling away that she finally lost him.

His SUV was at least a couple of miles from where he was. He had no way to follow her.

But he took the bus number.

He had contacts. As long as he had a bus number he could find the driver and question him. Canvass the entire route if he had to. One way or another he was going to find out where she got off.

And he’d continue the hunt.

* * *

STOPPING SHORT OF wringing her hands, Sara paced her small office at the Lemonade Stand. The sound of her heels on the hard plastic chair runner jarred her as she crossed around the back of the armchair she most usually sat in, to the desk, over to the front of her chair, around the walnut coffee table to the floral-pattern couch and back.

She adjusted the box of lotion-filled tissues on the table. And listened for the sound of footsteps outside.

Lynn Duncan Bishop, the Stand’s full-time nurse practitioner and chief medical officer, had said they’d only be a minute.

But with Maddie, Lynn’s live-in sister-in-law and a former victim of domestic abuse, one could never quite predict how things would go. In her thirties, Maddie had the emotional and mental capacity of a child.

Yet in spite of her mental handicap, Maddie was a superb child-care worker. She lived on campus full-time.

A short rap and the office door opened. Lynn stood on the other side, her thick strawberry blonde hair mussed as though she’d been in bed when Lila had called. It wasn’t even late—nine o’clock or so. But Lynn was on call 24/7.

“Sorry it took us so long,” she said.

“It’s my fault, Sara.” Maddie entered the room behind Lynn, dressed identically to her sister-in-law, in jeans and a Lemonade Stand polo shirt. “Darin and I were in bed together and Lynn said I could have sex again and Greta was asleep so we were copulating.” Her thick-tongued diatribe was issued with as much haste as Maddie could manage.

Deprived of oxygen at birth, and then locked up and beaten for over a decade by a man who’d married her straight out of high school, Maddie couldn’t discern what to say and what to keep to herself. But her word was always 100 percent the truth.

“It’s okay, Maddie.” Sara slipped instinctively into the role that Maddie would expect. With all the calm in the world, she asked Maddie and Lynn to have a seat.

“Lynn said that you need to know about Nicole, the new woman that talked to me, and I will tell you everything because I do not want her to be hurt, but I have to get back home, Sara. Greta will be awake in thirty-eight minutes and I will have to be there to feed her. Lynn says that as long as I am there to feed her and she gets full I am allowed to breast-feed her. I really think that’s important because kids have less childhood illnesses if they are breast-fed, isn’t that right, Lynn?”

“Statistically, that does appear to be the case,” Lynn said, with a look of urgent apology directed at Sara.

Smiling, Sara bent forward until she was looking Maddie in the eye. “I want you to be home to feed Greta,” she said. “You know we all understand how important that is.”

Maddie nodded. “I know, Sara. Thank you.” The almost thirty-seven-year-old new wife and mother was usually a bundle of happiness, and Sara knew that if Maddie became upset, she’d be of less use to Nicole. And right now, Maddie wanted to help Nicole.

It was up to Sara to assist her. Those roles were clearly understood.

“So are you ready to think about Nicole for a moment?” The afternoon clerk at the thrift store, a former resident, had been out to dinner with her adult children and they’d been unable to reach her until just half an hour ago. She was the one who’d told them that Maddie had been with Nicole in the store. Other than that, she hadn’t been able to tell them anything. She hadn’t seen Nicole leave. Or Maddie, either. She’d assumed, perfectly understandably, that the two women had made their way back to the Stand through the rear exit.

“Yes, I am ready.” Eyes wide, Maddie nodded. “I like Nicole. She hurts and needs her baby boy and I will do whatever you need me to do to help her get him.” Her eyes clouded and her head swung toward Lynn. “If I can help,” she said.

“All we need you to do is tell us what you remember about Nicole,” Sara said, keeping her tone soft. Maddie had come a long way since her ex-husband had kept her locked alone in a room for weeks on end, since he’d punished her so cruelly, for possessing a brain that would never progress beyond the preteen level. He’d married her fully aware of the situation. And then spent about twelve of the next fourteen years brutalizing her for it. In Sara’s professional opinion, Maddie would probably never completely get over her fear of disappointing those she cared about. Or her fear of getting in trouble for it.

“I remember that she’s really skinny,” Maddie said. “And she has blond hair and she’s very white. She doesn’t let her skin get tanned at all.”

Maddie had to do the telling in her own way.

Sara bit back the impatience that was bubbling so close to the surface. Every second that it took them to find the endangered woman was another second Nicole’s husband got closer to his goal.

“She asked me to come with her to get the jeans at the thrift shop because I don’t know why.” Maddie wrung her hands.

“Because she likes being around you,” Lynn said. “She told you so.”

“Yes, she did say that, but sometimes people say things just to be nice.”

“They do.” Lynn nodded and took a hold of Maddie’s hand. “But this time I think she said it because she meant it.”

Maddie’s glance was intent as she turned back to Sara. “Okay, then, she likes to be around me because I am genuine,” Maddie said. “She trusts me because I am genuine. That’s what she said.”

“Good.” Sara smiled, liking the missing woman even more, though this wasn’t about liking. It was about saving a high-risk victim from probable death.

“She didn’t want to go alone.” Maddie’s tongue seemed to trip over her teeth more than usual.

The minutes were ticking by and Sara’s nerves were ready to split. “It was very nice of you to go with her, Maddie. That helped her. But you already know that.”

“Yes,” Maddie said, frowning. “I do know that I was helping her. Greta was asleep and Darin was there if she woke up and he always texts me as soon as she does so I can feed her after he changes her diaper. We’re using disposables because they’re easier for us to fasten.”

“Everyone uses disposable diapers these days.” Lynn sent Sara another apologetic glance as she spoke.

“Not everyone.” Maddie’s reply was unusually staunch. “Nicole’s husband won’t let her use them. He says that a woman’s job is to keep up with her child’s laundry and every man deserves fresh soft cotton protecting his genitals.”

“What else did Nicole tell you?”

Lila was waiting to hear from Sara. She had an officer from the High Risk Team in her office. The LAPD had also been notified and a team had been dispatched to Trevor Kramer’s current residence.

“She told me about Toby.” Maddie frowned again. “And that she was pregnant before him, too. With a girl, like Greta. And her husband hit her until she couldn’t keep the baby inside her so that she wouldn’t have a girl. He said he told her that he was only going to be a dad to boy babies.”

Shaking inside, Sara used all of the skills at her disposal to keep a noncommittal, kind expression. Anything else Maddie would take personally and be waylaid.

“He’s not a nice man,” Lynn said. The nurse practitioner continued to hold her sister-in-law’s hand.

Nicole was out there in the dark. At Trevor’s mercy. “What was the last thing she said to you?” Sara asked Maddie. “You said you went with her to the thrift store...”

“I said she asked me to go,” Maddie corrected quite seriously. “I didn’t say yet that I did go.”

Leaning forward, Sara tried to hold Maddie’s gaze for more than the two or three seconds the other woman usually allowed. “Did you go?”

“Yes, I did.”

“And what was the last thing that she said to you? Do you remember?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Can you tell me?”

“She said, ‘I have to go.’”

“Go where? Why? Did she say why?”

Maddie’s face started to crumble and Sara gave herself an inner shake. She’d confused the slow-witted woman, and that was the last thing she’d ever want to do—whether someone else was in danger or not.

“Maddie,” she said, sliding to her knees in front of her. “I’m sorry. I’m scared for Nicole and it’s not your fault. It’s just...I need you right now. Okay?”

Sitting up straight, puffing out her chest, Maddie reached out a hand and patted Sara on the head. “Of course, Sara. You know I will do anything for you.”

Tears pricked the backs of her eyelids, a testament to her weakened state. “I know. So...if you could just tell me what happened at the thrift store to make Nicole have to leave...”

“It wasn’t at the thrift store, exactly...”

“Okay, was it before you went to the store with her that something happened?”

“No. We were in the thrift store, but he wasn’t.”

“He? Who’s he?”

Lynn’s gaze darted to Sara, but she didn’t interrupt.

“I didn’t see him. But she did. She said he was staring at us. And she said we should go to another part of the store and when we did she said that he moved, too, so he could see us. And then she said she had to go. But she didn’t go right away. She stood at the side door for a while and then she jumped on the side of a truck and rode away like in a movie.”

Sara had to get to Lila. To the police officer waiting for her.

“Did she say anything else to you?” she asked as she stood and glanced at Lynn, apologizing silently for running out and possibly upsetting Maddie, but she had to go.

“Just that I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone or her baby would get hurt, but then Lynn said that Nicole was confused and I had to tell to save her baby and...”

Sara lost Maddie’s words as she ran down the hall.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE DRIVER OF bus twelve didn’t notice when a skinny blonde white woman got off his bus. Michael showed the guy a picture. He couldn’t remember her. He drove the beach route. Skinny blondes were a dime a dozen to him.

Michael didn’t know if Nicole had managed to convince the guy that she was a victim, to play the innocent female needing protection—as she’d obviously managed to do at the women’s shelter—or if she’d merely been that unremarkable. Perhaps the bus driver really was as oblivious as he’d said after driving the same route day in and day out, letting people on and off the bus.

Either way, he couldn’t do a damn thing about the man’s statement. It was what it was.

Neither could he rest with Nicole Kramer so close by. And on the run.

Hailing a cab to get him back to his car, he hit the first number on his speed dial.

“Don’t worry, she’s already had dinner and her bath and is reading a story to the dogs before bedtime,” Ashleigh drawled over the line.

“I wasn’t worried,” he said. His mom would have checked in by now, too. They knew he was on a job. “I just want to tell her good-night.”

“Mar?” Ashleigh’s tone was soft.

“Tell him I’m busy.” He heard the little-girl voice, complete with the lisp.

Not waiting for his sister to relay the message, he said, “Tell her I said to come to the phone.” There wasn’t time for games that night.

He heard his sister’s voice... More important, her tone of voice. A quick scramble sounded, and then Mari said, “Hi, Daddy. I guess it’s not done yet, huh?”

She knew he caught bad guys—like the one who’d killed her mother. She didn’t need to know anything else. Their deal was he’d tell her when it was over. And that any time he could, he’d call to tell her good-night.

“Nope, not yet.”

“It’s dark.”

“I know.”

But her daddy was like Superman. He had special powers. And men with special powers had to get the bad guys so little girls and their mothers could sleep safely in their beds at night.

Reality was a part of Mari’s life.

Because reality was that Mari’s mother had been raped and murdered in their home while Mari had been sleeping in her bed down the hall. Not that the little girl knew any of the details. Only that Mommy had been killed. Not where. Or when.

“Hurry up and get done so you can come home,” she said now. The vulnerability in her voice only meant she was tired.

“I will. I love you, punkin.”

“I know. I love you, too, Daddy.”

“’Kay—” He was ready to tell her goodbye when she interrupted.

“Daddy?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you eat your supper?”

Did he lie to her? Or make her worry? Life was filled with hard choices.

“Yep.” He had eaten it. The night before. And the night before that.

“I love you, Daddy. Please come home for breakfast if you’re done.”

As if he’d be anyplace else.

Michael hung up just as the cab was turning onto the street with the thrift shop. Was it only a few hours since he’d been there? Seemed like days to him.

And he was no closer to catching his perp.

She was out there someplace. Desperate enough to break into someone’s home? To hurt them in order to get money for drugs?

Or would she head straight back to LA and the little boy she’d tried twice now to steal away from the father who loved him? Who worked as a shift manager at a reputable company and could provide a stable and loving home for the boy.

A father who didn’t do drugs.

Standing at the door to the SUV, he glanced over to the thrift shop. There had to be access to the women’s shelter somewhere on that street. It made sense. But he couldn’t find it.

Nor did he know a thing about women’s shelters. Except that they were hidden in ordinary neighborhoods. Hidden where no one would expect to find them.

Sara Haven had been outside the thrift shop the day before.

Sara, who worked with victims of domestic violence.

She’d know where the shelter was.

More than that, she knew Nicole. Sara was a counselor. The wanted woman had obviously talked to her. And probably to others, too, all of whom Sara could put in touch with him.

It meant that he was going to have to come clean with her.

He’d have to confess that their chance meeting had been a ruse. That he’d only been using her to get information.

But when she heard why, when she heard that the woman she’d been protecting was a dangerous criminal who’d probably smuggled a gun into the women’s shelter with her, she’d help him.

She wasn’t going to like him anymore, though.

It couldn’t be helped. Regret was a wasted emotion that he shrugged off as best he could.

Sliding his cell phone out of its holster, Michael dialed the number he’d told himself to forget.

* * *

SARA’S TENSION HAD not dissipated one bit. There was no encouraging news. A frustrating lack of it, as a matter of fact. Trevor Kramer, and his infant son, Toby, were both at home where they belonged. Trevor had been sitting alone watching the Food Network on television when the detectives had knocked on his door. Toby, asleep on a blanket on the couch next to him, appeared to be healthy, rosy cheeked and content.

The three-bedroom rental was clean. No sign of drugs or booze. It had smelled slightly of bacon. Trevor said he’d made an omelet for dinner.

He’d asked if there was any news on his wife.

The detectives had asked if he’d sent someone after her.

His adamant reply to the negative had convinced the LAPD that he was on the up and up.

Which made no sense to Sara or any of the other members of the High Risk Team, who were gathered in Lila McDaniel’s office just after ten that Saturday night.

They’d just received a call from the Santa Raquel police with a follow-up report on the truck that Nicole had reportedly ridden away on. The driver had never known she’d been aboard. Officers were canvassing the neighborhood but didn’t want to alert the public at large, or show Nicole’s picture in case her husband didn’t know she’d been in the area.

“I’m going to be off, then,” Officer Sanchez, one of the members of the High Risk Team, said as he reached out to shake Sara’s hand, and then Lila’s. “You two should get some rest, too. There’s not a lot more we can do tonight.” He looked toward Bethany, Nicole’s new victim witness advocate. “She has your cell number. My guess is that’s the one she’ll use if she wants to get in touch with us.”

“She has mine, too,” Sara said. They did things on a case-by-case basis at the Lemonade Stand. If she wanted to hand out her private cell number to residents, that was her business.

“And mine,” Lila added.

“Security’s all been alerted here,” Tammy Severnson, the most senior of the four full-time security agents at the Stand, said as she moved toward the door. “If she shows up, they know to get her to safety ASAP and be on guard for anyone following her.”

They all knew that. And that an APB had been sent, alerting officers in surrounding areas to be on the lookout for the woman.

“So...” Lila also moved toward the door. “We’re repeating ourselves here,” she said, stating the obvious. “Let’s all say an extra prayer that the night brings Nicole safely back to us and then try to get some rest.”

Sara wasn’t going to be sleeping well that night. And, she suspected, neither would Lila. But they had to go through the motions. Sara’s phone rang and everyone froze. She glanced from the screen to her teammates. “I don’t recognize the number,” she said, just before pushing the talk button.

“Sara?” She recognized the voice, though. Strange, considering that she’d only met him once. Maybe because he’d been the only bright spot in an otherwise difficult day.

Something had to account for the fact that he was still in the back of her mind.

“Yes, this is Sara.” The others were listening.

“You home?”

“No...” Everyone was watching her expectantly. She shook her head. Turned her back. She told him she’d been called into work. He wanted to meet. And as she agreed to meet her new neighbor at the condo’s pool in thirty minutes, she was aware of Tammy, Bethany and Officer Sanchez leaving the room.

She’d been thinking she’d stay for a while. Sit with Lila until the older woman was ready to retire for the night. The managing director had already said that she was going to be staying in her small apartment at the Stand that night rather than traveling the short distance to the home she owned and lived in alone.

Instead, she finished her phone call and said good-night to Lila right behind the rest of the High Risk Team members who’d been present that night. Feeling selfish. And leaving anyway.

She needed relief. Distance. She was in deep with this one, and Nicole needed her to be alert and professional.

If the police were successful in doing their jobs that night, if they were able to bring Nicole back safely, Sara was going to have to be refreshed enough in the morning to tend to the woman’s psyche.

And in the meantime, for the first time in a very long while, she was romantically...intrigued. Maybe this was fate’s way of telling her it was time for a little change in her life.

* * *

HE’D HAVE LIKED to have gone home and changed, but Michael didn’t want to risk waking Mari and getting her hopes up that he’d be sitting at the breakfast table with her in the morning. It was shaping up to be a long night.

And at the moment he wasn’t feeling all that hopeful that he’d have the case closed by morning.

When Sara Havens had told him she’d been called into work, he’d offered to meet her there. Sitting in his car across from the thrift shop, he figured she couldn’t be all that far away. She’d opted for the pool at the condo instead, and he hadn’t hated the idea.

He’d find out where she worked as soon as he came clean. If all went well. And Michael was a man who, when he was working, counted on things going well. A moment of doubt could cost him his life. Or his prey.