She hated that she still loved him. Hated that she wanted to comfort him the way he’d never let her comfort him. Hated especially that even after all the misery and heartache and time apart, he was still the one. The one who made her heart beat faster and her palms sweat. The one who could rock her world with just one look. The one who would forever ruin all other men for her from now until the end of time.
“I saw you on the news the other night,” he said in the awkward silence.
Her journalism career was the last thing she wanted to talk about, especially with him, but she recognized he was trying to be polite. And knowing he was probably feeling the same disappointment she was, she told herself to suck up her crappy day and deal with it. “It’s not a regular gig. I was just filling in at the anchor table.”
“Yeah, well, you did good. I liked the human-interest piece on the Little League coach encouraging handicapped kids to play sports.”
“Really?” Knowing he’d watched the whole newscast sent a pitiful thrill through her. “That was my piece.”
“I could tell.”
Of course he could. He knew the things that were dear to her heart.
She pulled her gaze from his and looked back at the floor because staring into his fathomless blue eyes, remembering all the times he’d kissed her and held her and told her she was his everything, was just too painful.
She struggled for something to fill the uncomfortable silence. “I’m a little surprised you’re in-country. I thought you’d be overseas somewhere.”
He was an incredible photojournalist. The best she’d ever seen. He had a way of capturing the human element in a crisis that made a person see conflict from a completely different perspective. It was one of the reasons she’d been so drawn to him when they’d met six years before. That and the fact that she’d felt as if she’d come alive the moment he’d looked at her.
She’d been a new beat reporter then, covering a colorful local election rally for her station. He’d been photographing not the politician but the faces of the spectators for the Associated Press. She’d caught him watching her through the crowd, and that had been it. She’d been entranced with just one look. Then she’d learned about his work and gotten to know the gentle heart he kept hidden beneath all those ruggedly handsome good looks, and she’d fallen headfirst into something that, even now with all the misery they’d lived through, was still the sweetest thing she’d ever known.
He shrugged. “I probably would be. Family stuff going on now, though.”
Her heart pinched all over again at the thought of his family. What had been her family until the divorce. More of a family to her than her own distant relatives. “I heard Ethan’s engaged. That’s great.”
“Yeah. For him.”
That pinch turned into a quick stab, and the urge to run, to flee, to get out of this painful conversation, consumed her. “Well, I—”
Voices echoed from the lobby down the hall. Raegan glanced past Alec to see what was going on. Alec turned to look. A disheveled woman in her thirties with a jacket hanging halfway off her shoulder rushed toward them, flanked by a man in slacks, a white button-down rolled up at the sleeves, and a skewed tie.
The couple hustled past them, bypassed the doctors, and drew to an abrupt stop near the officer at the end of the hall. Even from this distance, Raegan could hear the woman’s excited words.
“Where is she? Where’s Maggie?”
“Ma’am,” the officer said, “you have to calm down. We can’t let you in until you’re calm.”
The woman didn’t seem to hear the officer’s words. She stepped past him and looked through the window into the small room. A gasp sounded down the hall as the woman reached for the man’s arm. “Gary, it’s her. Oh my God, it’s her.”
The two pushed past the officer and rushed into the room. Their joyous voices drifted out into the hall as they were reunited with their daughter. The happy sounds swirled around Raegan, reminding her of everything she didn’t have, and might not ever find.
“Shit,” Alec muttered. “You didn’t need to see that.”
“I’m fine, Alec.” Raegan swiped at the stupid tears already spilling over her lashes. “Happy for them, is all.”
He stepped close and reached for her elbow, and as his familiar body heat surrounded her and his fingers grazed her arm, a thousand memories bombarded her. Lazy Saturdays curled on the couch with him. Candlelit dinners at midnight when she’d worked the late shift and stumbled in exhausted and in need of only him. The night he’d come home from an assignment in Afghanistan and she’d told him she was pregnant.
Her gaze lifted, landed on his. Sparks shot between them. Sparks that warmed the coldest places deep inside her. Her heart beat faster as his gaze raked her features. And all the things she should have said to him long ago stumbled on her tongue.
“Raegan?”
Raegan startled when she heard Jeremy Norris’s voice, and a new wave of discomfort rolled through her blood as she caught sight of him striding down the hall toward her.
“Darling.” Jeremy walked right up to her as if Alec weren’t even there, stepped between them so Alec was forced to let her go, and pulled her against him. “I came as soon as I heard the news.”
The breath left Raegan on a shocked gasp, and she looked over Jeremy’s shoulder toward Alec. Alec’s jaw clenched and his shoulders tightened, but he didn’t say anything, and Raegan found herself both relieved and disappointed by that fact.
Jeremy drew back but still held her at the elbows as he stared down at her with dark eyes. “What did they say?”
“It’s not her.” Prickles of heat rushed all over Raegan’s skin. Not the good heat, though. The kind that made her itch.
She tried to push out of Jeremy’s arms, but he sighed and pulled her close once more, trapping her in a claustrophobic embrace that made her want to scream. “I’m so sorry, darling.”
Alec’s gaze shifted from the back of Jeremy’s head to Raegan, and the minute their eyes locked and she saw the disappointment in his, guilt rushed in, forming a hard knot in her belly.
She eased out of Jeremy’s arms and swiped at the perspiration forming along her forehead. “Um, Jeremy, this is Alec.”
Jeremy turned on his news-personality charm as if Alec were another mindless viewer, and reached for Alec’s hand. “McClane, right? Saw a spread you did on the refugee situation in Kenya in Newsweek. Interesting choice. The real refugee story’s in Europe right now, don’t you think?”
Alec’s eyes narrowed, and Raegan tensed all over again because she recognized that look as disdain. “I’ve never been interested in reporting what’s popular at the moment.” He dropped Jeremy’s hand. “Who are you again?”
“Oh, sorry.” Jeremy smiled and wrapped an arm around Raegan’s shoulders in what she knew was a possessive move. “Jeremy Norris. Station manager at KTVP.”
Alec’s gaze shot to Raegan, and she winced when she read the you’re dating your boss? disbelief in his eyes.
Raegan glanced at Jeremy, desperate to get out of this uncomfortable situation. “I’m almost done here. Would you do me a favor and get me a water from the gift shop around the corner?”
“Sure.” Jeremy leaned down and pressed a kiss to her cheek. “Anything for my girl.” He looked toward Alec. “McClane.”
Alec frowned but nodded. “Norris.”
Jeremy finally let go of her and headed back down the hall. Mortified that had all just happened, Raegan swiped at her forehead again and said, “Sorry. I didn’t call him. Someone at the station must have told him why I left work.”
“Yeah.”
Alec’s expression didn’t soften, and his shoulders seemed even tighter than before. Guilt consumed Raegan. A guilt she had no reason to feel.
She looked down at her pumps, unable to meet his gaze any longer. “I, um, was surprised when I came out and saw you. I thought you’d be gone already.”
He glanced down the hall where Jeremy had been. ?
??Kinda wishing I had been.” She winced again as he looked back at her. “Guess I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
She almost laughed. She hadn’t been okay for three and a half years. Wasn’t sure she ever would be again. And he had to know that. “I’m a big girl, Alec. You don’t need to worry about me.”
“Contrary to what you think, I do. Especially with this.”
Her gaze lifted, and when their eyes met and she saw the regret lurking in his, every emotion she’d endured over the last three years hit her smack dab in the center of her chest until all she knew was loss.
She blinked back the sting of tears and looked away, knowing that, with Alec, there would never be anything but the reminder of that loss, no matter how much she craved something more.
“Well, I’d better go,” she said weakly.
“Yeah, me too.” He stepped back. “Take care, Raegan.”
Cool air washed over her, replacing all the sultry heat she’d felt near him, and rejection—a familiar, bitter rejection—hardened like ice in her belly. One she thought she’d gotten over. One that, even now, chilled her to the bone.
She swallowed the rejection back. Repeated the mantra in her head, the one that had gotten her through the worst of times: Be tough. You can get through this. Even managed to say, “You too.”
But as she turned and walked away, she knew that loss was going to consume her all over again. She just hoped it happened when she was alone tonight and not where anyone could see.
CHAPTER TWO
Alec’s stomach rolled as he waited in the visitor’s room at the Santiam Correctional Institution. The room was big, with a series of tables and chairs littered throughout the space. As it was Saturday, thirty minutes before the afternoon visiting hours were up, several of those tables were occupied by inmates, spouses, and children.
Alec looked away from a woman bouncing a small girl on her knee while she spoke with a man dressed in an orange jumpsuit seated across from her. The woman could have been Raegan from the back. Or maybe Alec was just hallucinating after seeing Raegan at the hospital.
Damn, but he hadn’t needed that today. Hadn’t needed the in-your-face reminder that she’d moved on and he had no one to blame for that but himself. She deserved to find a scrap of happiness in this world, and he had nothing to complain about, considering the number of women he’d dated. But none of his so-called dates ever got close to being serious. Raegan’s relationship with that dumbass Norris had looked serious. That whatever-they-were-to-each-other had looked serious as hell.
The heavy door across the room opened, and a corrections officer walked in with John Gilbert at his side.
Alec tensed, and all thoughts of Raegan faded into the background.
John Gilbert scanned the room with his muddy blue eyes, spotted Alec, and smiled a malicious grin. He was roughly Alec’s height, close to six two, and their eyes were both blue, though different shades. That was where the similarities ended. Gilbert’s skin tone was a shade darker than Alec’s, his hair a dingy brown instead of blond, and he was thin and bony, whereas Alec was strong and muscular. But even without the effects of years of drug use, Alec knew his looks came from his biological mother. A mother who’d cared about him so much, she’d dumped him with this prick and taken off to he didn’t know where.
Once, as a teenager, when he’d been stuck at the Bennett Juvenile Detention center on a drug charge thanks to the man now striding toward him, he’d thought about finding her. Thought about begging her to take him back. But then he’d met Michael McClane, a man who, in a short amount of time, had become more of a father to him than Gilbert had ever been. When Alec had seen what a real family was like, he’d never thought about the woman who’d given him life again.
“Wondered when I’d see you,” Gilbert said, stopping across the table from Alec with a sinister gleam in his eye. “’Bout damn time you came to visit your old man.”
Alec refrained from telling the piece of shit he’d never be his old man and clenched his jaw. He hadn’t come here to beat a confession out of Gilbert. As much as he wanted to do just that, he knew Gilbert was too cunning to admit to anything. No, he’d only come here to see the asshat’s eyes when he mentioned the girl from the hospital. One look was all Alec would need to determine if Gilbert was somehow involved in what had happened to her.
Alec’s gaze passed over the bright-orange jumpsuit hanging from Gilbert’s thin frame. “Looks like the food in this place sucks. A strong gust of wind could knock you over, old man. Pity for you.”
Gilbert’s eyes hardened. “What the fuck do you want?”
Neither of them sat. This wasn’t a friendly conversation. Alec glanced past Gilbert toward the guard who was watching them closely as if he expected fireworks to ignite. “I heard you like using the phone.”
A smug smile broke across Gilbert’s weathered face. Deep lines marred his cheeks and mouth, aging him long past his fifty-four years. “Oh, you came out here for the same reason those FBI hotshots did. You think I had somethin’ to do with that missing girl. I’ll tell you the same thing I told them. I don’t know nothin’.”
The twinkle in Gilbert’s eyes contradicted his words. Just as Alec suspected, the fucker knew a hell of a lot. “If I find out you had something to do with that gir—”
“You’ll what? Kick my ass like you threatened to do three years ago? We both know you ain’t got it in you, son.”
Alec’s hand clenched at his side. He saw his fist come back. Saw it plow into Gilbert’s face. Saw the blood splatter and spray across the table and floor. But he held back from unleashing the rage inside him. Knew it was what the asshole wanted him to do and that it wouldn’t fix the situation or get Gilbert to admit to a damn thing.
“’Sides which,” Gilbert went on, “I done tol’ those FBI people that wasn’t me. Not my fault they can’t do their fuckin’ job right.”
That was bullshit and they both knew it. Alec narrowed his gaze. “You stay away from me. You stay away from everything that has to do with me. Are we clear?”
“Oh, we’re clear,” Gilbert muttered.
Alec turned and headed for the door.
“Hey, boy,” Gilbert called at his back. “How’s that pretty wife of yours? Or should I say ex-wife. Maybe I’ll look her up when I get outta here next week. Seein’ as how you ain’t got no use for her no more, that is. I bet that newscaster mouth of hers could do all kinds a’ naughty things. She’s just waitin’ for the right man to show her how.”
The cap on Alec’s temper shot free, and all the anger and rage he’d been holding back bubbled up and over. He whipped back, grasped Gilbert by the shirtfront, and yanked the man halfway across the metal table. “If you touch her, if you so much as look at her, I’ll kill you, you son of a bitch.”
Two guards hollered and rushed over. One shoved Alec away with a nightstick, and the other grabbed Gilbert by the arm and hauled him back.
Gilbert chuckled, a malevolent gleam in his eyes as the guard put space between them. “Still get all worked up about that news whore, huh? Oh yeah, she’s a fine piece of ass. I think I will look her up.”
Alec growled and struggled against the guard holding him back.
“Gilbert,” the other guard yelled. “That’s enough. Your visitation time is over.”
The guard holding Alec was close to six five, a wall of solid muscle preventing the annihilation Alec wanted to unleash. “You need to calm down,” the guard yelled as Alec struggled. “Rogers,” he hollered at the other guard. He nodded toward Gilbert. “Get him the hell out of here.”
Rogers hauled a laughing Gilbert across the room and through the far door, and only when Alec couldn’t see the son of a bitch anymore did the red haze finally lessen.
Alec stopped struggling when he realized the guard was talking to him and tried to focus on the guard’s words. The guard was threatening to call the local cops if he didn’t chill out.
“I’m fine,” Alec said several minutes later,
still breathing heavily but no longer fighting to get free. “I got it,” he said to the guard, hoping the man would release him.
The guard frowned as if he didn’t believe him but finally let go. “Get out of here. And don’t come back, you hear?”
Alec stepped back, but his pulse didn’t slow even when he was outside in the cool winter air, staring at the cars in the parking lot. Because he now knew that, even from behind bars, his father had definitely had a hand in what had happened to that girl back at the hospital, just as he’d been involved in Emma’s disappearance three years ago.
No matter how much Alec wanted to ignore that fact, he couldn’t. He couldn’t because he knew as soon as John Gilbert was free next week, he’d be involved in some other child’s abduction before long.
Raegan sat at the desk in her cubicle at the KTVP studio, scanning reports of missing children in the Portland metropolitan area.
She’d spent the first two years after Emma’s disappearance scouring the web for similar cases. Many had seemed promising, but none had panned out. There were always inconsistencies . . . the manner in which the kids were taken, the circumstances of the families, even the ages of the children. She’d passed all the information off to Jack Bickam at the FBI, and he’d checked into each and every one, but none had ever been linked to Emma’s case, and after a while, when Raegan had realized her searches were getting her nowhere, she’d spent less and less time looking and more and more time trying to adjust to her new life alone.
But this girl—the one she’d seen today in that hospital—was eerily similar to Emma. Not just because of her hair color or because she’d sort of looked like Emma, but because she’d shown up in a park near where Emma had disappeared.
Raegan’s fingers stilled on the touch pad of her laptop when she came across a case from two years before. The boy had been two years old, African American, living with his parents in northeast Portland. He’d disappeared on a field trip with his day care center. Nothing about the case was at all the same as Emma’s. Nothing except one small detail Raegan might have missed if she hadn’t read the whole report: the fact the boy had disappeared in the same area where Emma had gone missing, at the same park where the girl today in the hospital had shown up.