“Show me the proof. Convince me she’s not a runaway because based on what I’ve heard so far that’s exactly the case.” Daniel stood in the crook of the opened door and cab of the vehicle.
For the second time she was struck by his sheer size. The man was tall. Six-feet-three-inches if she had to guess. His muscles rippled even through his black T-shirt. The cotton stretched and released against a solid-walled chest. He wore cargo pants and flip-flops. His serious expression and taut face told her there was a dark story bubbling below the surface. One that, based on her experience as a therapist, she knew better than to prod.
“I can’t,” she countered and figured he’d hop back inside the cab. She seized on his moment of hesitation. “Because it’s not the kind of proof that anyone else would see as reasonable.”
“What does that mean?” His dark brow arched. He was mid-thirties with serious lines on his forehead, brackets around his mouth. His olive skin was tanned. His face was made of hard angles and chiseled features. His glare was intense and she could imagine how intimidating it would be to someone he was interrogating. Instead of fear, it provoked other emotions inside her, emotions that had long been dormant and had no business resurfacing under the circumstances.
“It’s a feeling,” she said, figuring this was the point where she was about to lose his flicker of interest.
“Describe it.”
“We were close, Ashlyn and I, especially since my sister remarried. We’ve always been on the same wave length, which frustrated Stella. She chalked it up to us being close in age. But that doesn’t matter. I would know if something happened to Ashlyn. I would feel it in the pit of my stomach.” She heard how flimsy the words sounded coming out of her own mouth. But she meant them whole-heartedly. Call it women’s intuition or overprotectiveness but Clara had felt something was off every time that kid had come down with a cold.
Daniel looked at her like he was looking through her and another inappropriate jolt of awareness slammed into her. He was serious hotness with a rockin’ bod. That much was obvious to anyone with eyes. But her reactions to his physical presence were downright embarrassing. She shoved those unproductive thoughts aside. Under normal circumstances she might enjoy the fact that a man could provoke a sexual reaction inside her. It had been too long since she’d met anyone she thought was the slightest bit interesting. Why this man got her senses firing like a pinball machine was beyond her.
That was a question for another time.
Ashlyn needed her aunt’s full attention.
“Let’s pretend I believe you.” Daniel’s dark gaze nearly pierced through her. “Tell me what you know about this case.”
“About Ashlyn,” she corrected. “My niece is not a file to me.”
Those words seemed to score a direct hit.
“Fair enough,” he said. “Tell me about Ashlyn.”
“She’s smart. Straight As in school—”
“Tell me something I don’t already know about her or can’t read in a file,” he interrupted.
“Ashlyn is sensitive. She sees everything. She takes a sketchpad everywhere with her, keeps it tucked under her arm. Says she wants to capture moments as they happen and a camera just takes pictures,” Clara elaborated. She felt the moisture gathering in her eyes. “She’s beautiful. Blond hair. Blue eyes.”
“Like rivers,” he stated. “Like you.”
“Like her mother.” Her voice cracked as fear gripped her.
“Speaking of whom, why isn’t your sister here? Why isn’t she the one begging me for help?” he asked.
Good questions. She couldn’t answer honestly, so she said, “My best guess is that she doesn’t want to get her hopes up. The past couple of weeks have been hard on everyone, especially her. We tried to go to the Caribbean immediately following Ashlyn’s disappearance but there was a hurricane and we couldn’t get to the island. My sister insisted on going when the weather settled. She wanted me to stay here to man the house in case Ashlyn turned up. I still couldn’t say for sure why I listened.” Clara would beat herself up over that decision for the rest of her life. “I’m involved now because my sister’s decisions haven’t been stellar so far. And it’s complicated with her. Stella’s had it rough since she found out her husband had an affair a year ago. And now with Ashlyn it’s been one hit after another.”
“What about her father?” His dark penetrating gaze threw her off balance more than she wanted to allow or admit. “Ashlyn loved her father. He’s been busy. He spends a lot more time at the office. More time taking trips. He works for an ad agency and has been traveling back and forth to New York more frequently. He and my sister’s lives had been moving in different directions for the past couple of years. She never said but I’m pretty certain my sister started having an affair with her tennis coach,” she admitted. “I know her heart couldn’t have been in it. As soon as my brother-in-law confessed his feelings for another woman he changed jobs and promised never to see her again.” Clara flashed eyes at him, embarrassed at recounting her family’s intimate details to a stranger, thinking she’d spent her whole career on the other side of a conversation just like this one. “He wanted to keep their family together but my sister said she’d never be able to trust him again. That’s when she met Timothy, her current husband.”
Clara wiped the moisture from her eyes. “Sorry.”
“If she didn’t run away, who took her?” he asked and she was thankful for the change in subject.
“If I knew that I wouldn’t be—”
“You must have some idea,” he stated.
“That’s the problem. I don’t.”
Unlike the Jamaican authorities, he didn’t mention the fact that she fit the bill perfectly for human trafficking with
