“Even if you find him though,” she said, “he’s pretty slippery, and he’ll be gone again soon.”
“Because he travels so much?”
“That, and he’s just not the kind who likes to be questioned,” she said. “He doesn’t believe in authority, doesn’t really believe in a hierarchy within a company, and he doesn’t really believe that he’s beholden to anybody for anything.”
“Nice guy,” he said.
She edged closer to Greyson, whispering now. “It’s the kind of thing that you don’t really understand about a person until you live with them for a while,” she said. “At that point, the façade, the shininess starts to fade, and the real person shows up. But you still don’t really understand until something happens—like, in my case, the pregnancy—and you see just what an asshole he is.”
“He wanted an abortion?” Greyson was whispering now too.
She nodded. “He didn’t want a family, didn’t want the expense of a family, and definitely didn’t want to pay child support.”
“So it doesn’t make any sense that he’s involved in kidnapping Danny now,” he said.
“I know. I keep racking my brain about that. And why didn’t he just get the lawyers in on it? His request started with the lawyers.”
“Lawyers cost money.”
“George had money,” she said, “but maybe he had a midlife crisis and needed to produce a child to continue his lineage or some such nonsense,” she said with a shrug. She shook her head. “It was basically both of us at the same time having our own crises. He was moving out, and I couldn’t afford to keep the place and wanted to get a long way away from him anyway, so a friend of mine moved us here.”
“Would that friend have anything to do with this?”
She laughed. “No, not at all. That’s the definition of a friend. Somebody who helps, not somebody who turns around and tries to steal your child.”
“I get that,” he said, “but all kinds of reasons are in the back of people’s minds for doing stuff.”
“I don’t think I like the way your mind works,” she said with a sad look at him. “I think you’ve lived in the war zone too much so you see something wrong in everybody now.”
“Probably,” he said, “but it’s also the truth.”
She looked at him and asked, “You need something to eat?”
He hesitated and then said, “Do you have anything?”
“There’s always food of some kind,” she said with a smile. She got up, opened the fridge, and said, “Are you up for bacon and eggs?”
“I’m always up for bacon and eggs,” he said. “It certainly doesn’t have to be a morning meal either,” he said with a laugh. “Some foods are good all day long.”
“I got you covered then,” she said.
Now that the adrenaline had worn off, and he’d been in the unfortunate position of having to tell her that they had lost the kidnapper, Greyson now sat hugging a cup of coffee and watching as Jessica whipped up bacon and eggs. It was a joy to see her in the kitchen. She was obviously comfortable and happy to be here. He enjoyed being in the kitchen himself, but he preferred being around a barbecue grill more.
When she turned around with two full plates, he smiled. “Now that looks perfect,” he said. “Thank you so much.”
She shook her head. “No way I can thank you for what you did,” she said. The two of them sat at the island and watched as Danny now played beside them. He was a little on the cranky side, soon getting up to lay on the couch, but he fidgeted still. She saw it, looked at Greyson, and said, “I know he’s not feeling well. Maybe I’ll take him up for a nap after we’re done eating.”
“You do that,” he said, “and I’ll crash on the couch.”
She looked at him in surprise.
He shook his head. “If you think you’ll be alone while this guy on the loose, think again.”
She continued to stare at him, her eyes darkening.
“I’m no threat to you,” he said gently. “I promise.”
She gave a quick headshake. “I know that,” she said. “I hadn’t really given too much thought to what would happen after this,” she said. “The cops weren’t too interested in a protection detail. And, of course, it’s not that big of a deal to them.”
“It is, but they have a shortage of man-hours, and there’s a cost involved,” he said.
She nodded reluctantly. “That always ends up being the bottom line, doesn’t it?” She sank back on her chair, studying her son morosely. “I’ll have to move.”
“Do you have some place to move to?”
She shook her head. “No, not really,” she said. “I’ve still got vacation time this week and next, but then I have to go back to work too.”
He watched while she pushed the tendrils of hair off her face.
“Well, for the moment,” he said, “I’ll move into your downstairs and make sure nobody else tries to come into the house and take Danny again.”
“And that’s a temporary solution,” she muttered. “I need a long-term solution.”
“The only long-term solution,” he said, “is getting rid of this guy and finding out who hired him. If somebody was hired on, that is.”
She shot him a hard look. “Do you really think it could be anybody other than George?”
“What kind of event would cause him to do something like this, after all this time?” He looked over at Danny. “Why after two years would he come out of the blue and try to take him?”
Her shoulders sagged. “That’s the same question I’ve been asking myself since that fender bender,” she muttered.
“Exactly,” he said, “so we won’t rule it out, but we also have to focus on something other than just that, so we don’t make a mistake. I don’t want to be narrow-minded and get locked into one idea.’
“That’s fine,” she said, hopping to her feet. Grabbing their dirty dishes, she took them over to
