Cries In The Night

She wasn’t really worried on that score. Not anymore. Not with Bill here. He would see that this investigation was handled properly. He wouldn’t be swayed by the local authorities who considered her just another distraught mother who wouldn’t face reality. To them, this whole thing was nothing more than a misplaced body. The body would show up, they’d assured her. She might as well come to terms with the loss now.

But she couldn’t do that. Wouldn’t do that.

Bill leaned forward, propped his arms on the table and peered at her with those steady gray eyes. “We’re going to need help on this one, Mel. I’m good, but not good enough. We need the best on our side.”

Melany stilled. A new kind of emotion stirred inside her. A mixture of fear and a kind of anticipation she didn’t want to feel. No. Not him. She shook her head. “I don’t want you to call him. I trust you. You know how to do this.”

“This is too important,” Bill countered firmly, his voice carefully gentled. “You know it better than anyone. We need the best. He is the best.”

She started to argue but he stopped her with an uplifted palm. “I’ve already called him. He’s here. He wants to see you.”

Dammit, she did not want to see Ryan Braxton. She twisted her hands together in her lap to keep them from shaking. “He’s here? Now?”

Bill nodded. “He wants to help you, Mel. Let him. He’s the best there is and you know it. We need him.”

Bill was right. Ryan Braxton had been the best man at Quantico when it came to finding missing children and their predators. His instincts were uncanny. His skills unparalleled. He never failed. Katlin deserved the best. Melany needed him, even if she didn’t want to admit it. But hadn’t he left the Bureau?

As if reading her mind, Bill said, “He’s with a private agency now, but he’s willing to take the case if you want him.”

If she wanted him? She almost laughed, but couldn’t manage the energy required. With monumental effort she pushed the past aside and focused on one thing, her daughter.

“All right,” she agreed, her voice so stilted she hardly recognized it as her own. “Whatever it takes to find my little girl.”

As if on cue, the door behind her opened once more. He’d been listening, she realized. He knew she didn’t want him here, but then that wouldn’t surprise him, she imagined.

That damned anticipation spiked again, sending adrenaline rushing through her veins. She moistened her lips, summoned her resolve, and looked up to greet the man she’d walked away from two years ago. The man she’d loved with her entire being. The same one who’d chosen his career over a life with her. And Bill was right, she suddenly realized. She needed Ryan Braxton. It would take his kind of relentlessness to look beyond the obvious and find Katlin.

When her gaze met his she wasn’t at all prepared for the impact of those deep blue eyes. Her resolve crumbled immediately, leaving her as defenseless as she’d been two years ago, all over again. His dark hair was still short. There was a peppering of gray at the temples. Her gaze lingered there. That was definitely new. She would never have believed anything, not even age, could touch Ryan. He was far too invincible, too unreachable. But there it was. Did he look older, otherwise? She resisted the urge to shake her head. No, he looked exactly the same.

Tall and lean with broad, broad shoulders. His Armani suit looking as if he’d just put it on. The navy a perfect match for those dark eyes. His too-handsome face clean-shaven, the set of his square jaw all business.

“Hello, Mel.”

He didn’t sit down. She’d known he wouldn’t. It was an indication of power. She’d seen him in action countless times. He was in charge now and the sooner she realized that, the better it would be.

“Ryan,” she returned. Fierce emotions warred inside her. The need to drink him in with her eyes, the need to touch him…and at the same time the urge to run like hell. How could she talk to this man, tell him about her daughter, and not tell him everything? She considered the sculpted angles of his face again, the shallow cleft in his chin, the mouth she’d kissed so many times, and then she looked fully into those all-seeing eyes. Her heart lurched at what she saw there. Something more than the sympathy he wanted her to see. And then it was gone, but not quite quickly enough.

He still cared for her and, damn it, that only made bad matters worse.

“I want you to start at the beginning,” he said in that deep, husky voice that made her shiver. His words were calm, quiet, as if they hadn’t lived together for three years…as if they hadn’t made love night after night all that time.

“Tell me everything,” he added, then reached into his inside coat pocket and removed a document. When he’d unfolded it and laid it on the table, he pushed it in her direction. “Make me believe that this is a mistake.”

Melany dragged her gaze from his to stare at the document. Shelby County Health Department. Certificate of Death. Katlin Jackson.

“Give me one shred of evidence that this is a mistake, Mel,” he told her, “and I swear I’ll move heaven and earth to find your daughter.”

Chapter Two

By 7:45 p.m. Ryan and Bill had commandeered a fair-sized office with two incoming lines and a fax machine. Memphis P.D. was happy to help, and to turn the case they definitely did not want over to the Feds. Bill inconspicuously passed Ryan off as an agent, as well. The usual jurisdiction battle lines went undrawn. No one wanted to touch this case. Even the press had played it soft. Minimal coverage in the papers. None of the local television channels had spent more than a perfunctory thirty seconds on Melany’s grave-digging escapade.

It was just as well, she decided. Any hype in the media could work against them. The last thing they needed were calls from people who thought they knew something when they really didn’t. She wasn’t ready for false Katlin sightings from strangers just yet. She’d worked in the investigation business long enough to know that most of the input generated by the media was useless. There were times when the media could actually be a very efficient tool, but those occasions were few and far between.

At least the local cops were no longer looking at Mel as if she was crazy. She almost smiled. Those accusations now rested firmly atop Bill’s and Ryan’s shoulders. The boys in blue merely looked at her with sympathy at this point. No doubt the possibility that the Feds were only dragging out the inevitable had been discussed by all on duty.

Mel didn’t care what they thought. All that mattered was that she finally had help. Expert help. If anyone could find Katlin, it was Ryan. Her gaze drifted in his direction. They had to find her. Soon. Mel wasn’t sure how much longer she could take the not knowing.

They had exchanged cell phone numbers for convenience and Ryan had already started a time line on a wall-mounted whiteboard. Sitting stiffly at the equipment console-turned-conference-table, Mel stared at the time line now, her abdominal muscles clenched in a familiar knot of anticipation. She knew this routine, somehow found it comforting. This was the first step and her relief was almost palpable. Bill was on the telephone getting a court order for copies of all the hospital reports related to Mel and Katlin, his voice a low, but gruff murmur. Any minute now he would snag one of the locals and make him his personal gopher.

“What can I do?” Mel’s voice sounded stark in contrast to Ryan’s silence and Bill’s quiet cadence.

Ryan stopped labeling and dating incidents and turned to her. “What?”

The trance. A familiar pang of jealousy speared through her. The Braxton trance. Whenever he took on a case he immersed himself so completely that he was barely aware of anything else around him. He blinked now, focusing on her, waiting for a response, attempting to assimilate her comment. Their relationship had never stood a chance against his work. It consumed him…defined him. Nothing or no one else mattered. If only she could tune out all else as he could, maybe the next few days wouldn’t be so bad.

“Would you like me to set up witness interviews?” she offered. She cringed at the old hurt weighting her tone. The flicker of surprise in his eyes told her he’d heard it, too. But she couldn’t just sit here…she had to do something, to help in some way. “Additional interviews,” she clarified when he only stared at her. “That’s the next logical step, right?” She stood to punctuate the question.

He scrubbed a hand over the five o’clock shadow darkening his chin as if considering her offer. “Look, Mel. You know the drill. The fact that you’re even in this room is a breach of protocol. You really—”

“Don’t even think about it, Braxton.” The hurt was gone from her tone, anger and an icy warning vibrated in its place. Bill looked up from the notes he was making, his end of the telephone conversation stumbling to a halt.

“This is my daughter.” Mel pointed to the pictures taped to the wall and stepped closer to the man she refused to be intimidated by. Glared up into those cool blue eyes without flinching, which was a pretty amazing feat considering her heart was pounding like a drum. “She’s not just some statistic in a case. She’s my flesh and blood. And you’re damned right that makes me personally involved. But the bottom line is, I don’t give a damn what it makes me. You will not shut me out. Either I help you with this investigation or I start one of my own. It’s your choice.”

He hesitated, damn him, just long enough to make her sweat.

“Start with the paramedics and any witnesses at the scene,” he ordered coolly. “I want a copy of the police report and I want to see the vehicle first thing tomorrow morning.” He didn’t miss a beat at her sharply indrawn breath. “I want to know who else was on duty in the pediatric ward when the child coded. I want to know,” he pressed, his voice harsh, demanding, “every little thing—no matter how insignificant—they did to revive her and their conclusions about what went wrong. I also want to know the name of anyone who so much as looked at her from the moment she was wheeled through the E.R. doors. Any questions?”

He wanted to scare her off. But it wouldn’t work. Mel fought to control the trembling that had started in her legs and was working its way up her rigid body. “None.”

“Good.”

He gave her his back, turning his attention once more to the time line he was so meticulously constructing. She forced herself to take two unsteady steps back to the table that served as their workstation.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m still here. That’s right,” Bill said into the receiver as he watched her ease down into the seat across from him. “I’ll send someone over for it, ASAP.”

Melany picked up a couple of freshly sharpened number twos and dragged a yellow legal pad in her direction. She wet her lips and forced her attention to the task of list-making.

“You okay?” Bill asked quietly.

She nodded, still uncertain of her voice, then blinked back the fresh tears brimming. By God, she would not cry. Not now and give Braxton the satisfaction of thinking he’d accomplished his goal.

Bill punched in another string of numbers and mumbled something that sounded vaguely like self-righteous ass. Mel felt her lips curl upward in spite of the damned tears now spilling past her lashes.

“Ayers?” Bill barked. “What’s the name of that rookie you said we could borrow?” He listened. “Well, send him down here. I have a job for him.”

Bill hung up. No goodbye, no thank-you, just hung up. That was Bill. Mel covertly swiped her eyes, then quickly scribbled a couple of names she remembered onto her pad. He was the perfect contrast to Ryan. Bill was all grumpy bark and no bite. Ryan was the one to be wary of. Polished, silent and lethal. There was a kind of dangerous elegance about him. And why wouldn’t there be? He spent ninety percent of his time dealing with the lowest of the lowlife. People who committed crimes against children.

The work had hardened him to the point that most who knew him well called him heartless. But Mel had been around during that other ten percent of his time. His lovemaking and sense of possessiveness were every bit as intense as his dedication to duty. He’d loved her the only way he’d known how, no question there. But he always held back part of himself. Never let go completely. He was the most guarded man she’d ever known. And no matter how much she’d loved him, she could never get past that wall he’d erected around his heart.

She recognized that it was a self-preservation instinct, pure and simple. But it didn’t make it any easier to accept. So she’d left. And now, here they were, thrown together again by fate. God, how she wished she could go back and change what had happened. She closed her eyes and replayed her last hours with Katlin. They’d been in a hurry to get to the post office before it closed. She’d suddenly realized she’d forgotten her purse and had to turn around.

The light was green, but the other car didn’t yield. She was halfway through the intersection before she realized he wasn’t going to stop…then it was too late. She remembered reaching back to brace Katlin. Though the baby was strapped into her car seat, the move had been instinctive. She recalled vividly the sound of squealing tires. The horrible impact and groan of crumpling metal.

Then nothing.

“This is Greg Carter,” Bill announced.

Startled, Mel looked up. A young man had entered the office without her realizing it. The gopher. Blond hair, brown eyes, and most likely still as green as he’d been the day they issued him the stiffly starched uniform he so proudly wore.

Mel stood, offered her hand and dredged up a thin smile. “Hey, Greg, good to have you on board.”

He grinned and gave her hand an enthusiastic pump. “Thanks, ma’am. This is my first time working on a joint task force.”

Translation: playing errand boy to the Feds and company. “I’m sure you’ll be a big help.” Though she wasn’t at all sure the four of them actually fulfilled the definition of a task force, why burst the rookie’s bubble?

“And this is Ryan Braxton,” Bill said, gesturing in his direction. “He’s the lead investigator in this case.”

Ryan’s wide hand engulfed the kid’s and squeezed briefly. “We have two rules, Carter,” Ryan said bluntly. “What’s said between the members of this team goes no further without authorization from either Bill or me, and you never deviate from orders. You do it when, where and how we say, no exceptions.”

Greg bobbed his head. “I understand, sir. You can count on me.”

Braxton’s rules. Though he had always been highly sought after for his awesome profiling abilities, he wasn’t exactly team player material. His former Bureau superiors had long ago given up on making him play by their rules. Ryan Braxton was a rule unto himself. He did his job and nobody asked questions, because he was just too damned good. No one would risk losing his expertise. She was sure the Colby Agency felt the same way about him now that they had him on their team. Mel was no different. She would play by his don’t-question-anything-I-say rules and she would do whatever he told her…to an extent, choosing her battles carefully.

Whatever it took to find Katlin. She swallowed back the ache that climbed into her throat each time she thought of her daughter. Focus on the steps of the investigation, she reminded herself as she directed her attention back to the newest member of their little group.

Bill gave Carter a detailed list of what he expected him to pick up at the hospital then said, “Pick up the court order first. And when you get to the hospital, I want you to watch the clerk pull the records and make the copies. Don’t let those files out of your sight until you have a complete copy. With this kind of case you can’t trust anyone. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.”

Mel wouldn’t have been surprised if the guy had snapped off a salute before hustling out the door. Talk about eager.

She studied Bill for a moment. It didn’t matter to him that the records clerks were probably gone home by now. He wanted what he wanted now. In that respect he was very much like Ryan. But no one she had ever met in the Bureau could hold a candle where Ryan’s single-minded determination was concerned. He had spent most of his Bureau time on the road for that very reason. He was relentless. He never gave up until he’d accomplished what he set out to do. She’d never been more grateful for that characteristic than she was now.

Following Bill’s lead, Mel returned to her assigned task. She grimaced as her stiff muscles reminded her that she wasn’t back to her old self yet. And, God, she was so tired. She massaged her neck, wishing the steady throb in her head would take a break. She really needed some sleep. But sleep was out of the question. Every time she closed her eyes…the voices came. She just couldn’t go through another night of the dreams and cries.

SHE SHOULDN’T BE IN HERE. Ryan rubbed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. She looked like hell, definitely needed some rest. His brow furrowed into a frown. He wondered if she’d even eaten today. He forced his attention back to his time line. She was a grown woman. She could take care of herself, he reasoned. It was none of his business whether she’d slept or eaten. They were working a case together. Nothing more. And, had it been up to him, she wouldn’t even be doing that.

He tried to recall the months they’d worked together before…before they’d become lovers. What was the point? Even then he’d been mesmerized by every little thing about her. The way she smiled…her laugh, the way her mouth quirked when she wanted to laugh and knew she shouldn’t. Everything about her made him want her. The curve of her cheek, the taste of her lips, the heat of her sweet body as he sank deeply inside her. His lips tightened into a thin line of self-deprecation. How could he still think that way?

She wasn’t his anymore. As soon as he solved the mystery surrounding her daughter’s disappearance they wouldn’t see each other again.

He’d go back to Chicago and she’d go back to…to whomever she’d turned to since she’d walked away from him. His frown deepened. Where the hell was the child’s father now when Mel needed him most? Ryan snapped the cap onto the black marker he’d been using with enough force to crack it. Why did he even wonder? Somehow he had to get past this ridiculous feeling of possessiveness. He’d even caught himself studying the child’s photograph to see if he could find any resemblance to himself. Of course there was none. The child was a carbon copy of her mother. Why had he done that?

He’d spent the entire afternoon, he glanced at his watch, and a good part of the evening closed up in this office with her. The subtle scent of her perfume was driving him crazy. It was the same fragrance she’d always worn. Sweet, light, natural. He wanted desperately to thread his fingers into all that silky blond hair. To taste those pink lips while he stared into those eager green eyes.

He massaged the back of his neck, the muscles tight and knotted there. He had to get out of here before he did or said something he’d regret. “I’m calling it a night.” He turned to face Bill and Mel. “We could all use some rest.” He sent a pointed look in her direction. She merely lifted her chin and glared back at him.

Bill closed his notebook. “I was just thinking the same thing.” He glanced at his watch. “We’ve probably got time to have dinner before Carter gets back. I want to look at those files tonight.”

Ryan resisted the impulse to shake him. Didn’t Bill get it? He’d had all the Melany exposure he could take today. “Fine.” Ryan headed toward the door. “I’ll see the two of you in the morning.”

“I thought we could take Mel to dinner and see her safely home,” Bill put in quickly, stopping Ryan dead in his tracks.

They were going to have to have a talk. But not right now. Not in front of Mel. The last thing Ryan wanted was for her to know that she still affected him…on any level.

Ryan pinned Bill with a look. One he hoped relayed the depth of his irritation. “I’m sure you two can manage without me. I have things to do. Calls to make.” He turned to Mel. “You have my number. Call me if you need me.”

She nodded, her expression unreadable.

He didn’t want to wonder what she was thinking, but he did. He walked out anyway, paused in the corridor and took a long, deep breath. He had to stay focused on the case…not Melany. He had to keep the face of the child before him…not the mother. It was the child who needed him. Whether she was dead or alive, he had to find her. That was his job. Holding Mel’s hand was not part of the deal. Bill would just have to see to that task himself.

Ryan exited the building and unlocked his rental car. He opened the door, but hesitated before getting inside. He cursed himself for the hesitation. Mel was strong, she could handle this, he assured that irritating little voice in his head. She didn’t need him, anyway. Hadn’t she been the one to walk out? Besides, if she wanted a shoulder to cry on or a hand to hold, why didn’t she just call up the father of her child?

He gritted his teeth at that thought. Damn. He didn’t want to feel this. He just wanted to do the job and get the hell out of here.

“Ryan, wait!”

Mel.

He turned in the direction of her voice. She was hurrying toward him, her face pale, her eyes suspiciously bright. Something he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—name shifted in his chest. He stood there, staring at her, until she’d reached him and caught her breath.

“Was there something else?” he growled.

She shook her head. “No, it’s just that…” She paused and grappled for composure. “I didn’t get a chance to thank you for agreeing to help me.”

His fingers tightened on the door. Why hadn’t he already gotten in and driven away? His own emotions were too raw and close to the surface to deal with this. “There’s no need to thank me,” he told her flatly. “I’m only doing my job.”

She pushed a handful of silky hair behind her ear. She’d always worn it up around the office. Seeing her with it down like this reminded him of the time they’d spent together. Alone. Intimately.

“I know you didn’t want to take this case.” She looked away, but couldn’t hide the tortured expression that had claimed her features. “You probably think I’m crazy just like everybody else, but I know my daughter’s alive.”

He flinched at the tormented sound of her voice, then grabbed back control. This was business, he had to make sure it stayed that way. “I don’t think anything at this point,” he said with more clinical detachment than he’d thought possible. “And, if I remember correctly, you were the one who didn’t want me on this case.”

Color rose in her pale cheeks as she looked up at him once more. “I was wrong.” She shrugged one slender shoulder. “I didn’t know how I would handle seeing you again.”

An eyebrow shot up his forehead. “Why would you worry?” he demanded sharply. “We have been over for two years.”

She looked away again, and he could have kicked himself. Where the hell was his control?

“I know.” The words were hardly more than a sigh. “But I was worried anyway. We were—”

“Were being the operative word,” he interjected roughly. This was going nowhere. Neither of them needed this right now. “Your appreciation is duly noted. Get some rest, Mel, you’ll need it.”

He got into the car, closed the door and drove away. There was nothing else to say about the past and one of them had to be big enough to admit it.

He just hadn’t expected it to be him.

Chapter Three

Melany sat in Katlin’s room that night.

She’d taken a long hot soak in the tub to ease her stiff muscles. Now, she just sat there, trying not to think. Or feel. She rolled her head, stretching her neck. It didn’t help. Her head still ached, not like before, but just enough to be annoying.

The minute hand on the Little Mermaid clock sidled one notch closer to the hour. Twelve minutes before 1:00 a.m. She really should go to bed. She was exhausted. She needed to sleep. But why bother? If she slept, she would dream. If she dreamed she would have to remember.