“And that’s one of the reasons we’re continuing to look into Noah right now. If we knew why he might need to hide Kelsey’s pregnancy, then we’d probably know who was behind this, which might lead us right to the child. If there is one. And Noah’s the father.”

  So many ifs. Too many.

  But they were closer. Getting answers. She had to keep her mind positive. Have hope. Believe they were going to find the answers they sought.

  And hopefully ensure a child’s future and safety.

  “The fact that Maria hadn’t seen her in six months...that fits a pregnancy timeline.”

  There was a baby. She just knew it.

  At the moment, considering her near abduction and Noah’s suspicious death, not to mention his warnings to Haley, the presence of a baby scared her more than anything. Because if there was one, it was looking more and more as though it was in “wrong hands.” They had to find the little one before it was too late. If it wasn’t already too late...

  Stark cold stabbed her stomach, her heart, took her air, and she stared straight ahead. Caught in an emotional abyss...

  “I’m going to hit these next two places because they’re close by and could be pertinent if he took Kelsey there, and then I need a few minutes on my computer to look for Maya, see what kind of hits I get typing in her name with Noah’s. There might be a much shorter trail to follow,” Paul’s words pulled her out of the vortex and her lungs filled with air. Sucking greedily she nodded. Grateful to have him in charge. She wanted to be strong.

  Would be strong.

  Had already been damned strong that morning.

  And it was all getting to her, too.

  As an ER nurse she was used to grueling long shifts on her feet, and had seen death. More of it than a lot of people. Deaths of children, even. But nothing in her life had prepared her for days on the road seeking, and running from, a killer.

  “You’re wondering why Kels changed her identity aren’t you?” she asked when the silence became more detrimental to her state of mind than conversation.

  “Aren’t you?” He didn’t look her way, kept his attention where it needed to be, on the road, and around them, too. He was watching to see if they were being followed. The concentration, the constant checks in the mirror, the changing of lanes and sudden turns...they’d become so familiar she’d almost taken them for granted.

  In just two days.

  “I think if we know why she was hiding, or who she was hiding from, we’d be a lot closer to figuring out what went so horribly wrong.”

  “I’m guessing she was hiding from Gladstone.”

  She’d thought so. But, without proof, hadn’t expected Paul to be forming conclusions. The fact that he had...scared her, too. Gladstone had given her the creeps the night before. Even when he’d been seemingly cowering. She wouldn’t put it past him to have somehow orchestrated her abduction that morning.

  “We lose all trace of Kelsey Carmichael about the time Gladstone quit using her credit card,” Paul broke into her thoughts. “Which is when he claims to have been warned by an attorney from Pahrump to cease and desist. The timing’s right,” he said, as he pulled into the parking lot of an unremarkable building. Gray, not overly large, with no signage, it just kind of sat there.

  “This is it,” he told her, reaching for his door handle. “Since we have no idea what kind of club The Dream actually is, stick close to me. Let’s do the couple thing, again. It worked well last night. And gives us a chance to stick close.”

  Nodding, Haley wet dry lips. Unbuckled her seat belt.

  And focused on the only thing that made her feel good at the moment.

  Sticking close to Paul.

  * * *

  The first thing they learned inside was that Noah Willoughby was gay. Paul hadn’t seen that one coming. While Noah had been afraid to tell his mother, afraid she’d be disappointed that he wasn’t going to give her the traditional family she’d always wanted, he’d been more worried about having to prove himself at the helm of Charles! Industries as a twenty-one-year-old, to add fighting his way in the diversity cycle at the same time.

  His father had been in the fashion industry, but their investors were largely older men who’d been friends with Charles’s father. Men of a different day who weren’t as comfortable with the changing world.

  Noah might not have found the courage to come out to his family, but he’d been firmly enmeshed in a lifestyle, and a family of friends, who’d supported his choices completely.

  Maya among them.

  “Not only was he not having a sexual relationship with Kels, he was in a three-year loving relationship with a man ten years his senior,” Haley said, looking shell shocked, as they climbed back into the SUV just before five that Sunday afternoon.

  It was 108 outside and she wasn’t even sweating. How did she do that?

  He felt like a sticky pig who’d rolled in the dirt.

  And why would that matter? He’d looked and smelled a lot worse while on the hunt.

  What was really bugging him, and shouldn’t matter as much as it did, was that he was disappointing Haley. Seemingly at every turn.

  “This is how the job works, Hale,” he said, subconsciously using his old nickname for her as he sought to raise her spirits, hearing it only as it came out of his mouth.

  “If we knew everything, we’d know everything.” As reassurance, his words sucked, but they were the truth of what he did every day of his life. The only way he succeeded was by finding out what he didn’t know.

  His truth.

  If he knew everything, he’d know everything. Since he didn’t, he didn’t always get things right.

  Like his life with her...

  And the way he’d left.

  “It’s gratifying to hear that Kels was such a support to him,” Haley said softly.

  And his heart jumped sides on him. Aligning itself right there with hers.

  “Her number one goal was to land a rich husband, but she also had a huge heart. It makes me feel good to know that she was there for Noah, not to gain herself a rich husband, but just to be a friend.”

  You had to admire a woman who could find a way up from the bottom of her barrel.

  Haley had always been that way. Even in the emotional moments, she’d find the other side, find the good, or the better. How had he forgotten that part?

  And yet... “Just because Noah wasn’t having sex with her doesn’t mean he wasn’t supporting her,” he had to remind his ex-wife. “I’m not trying to be mean, or unsupportive, or shed a bad light on Kelsey. Time’s of an essence here, Haley, and we have to, I have to,” he corrected, “look at what I know. It could be that Noah, in his attempt to hide his sexuality, had proposed to her, was maybe even planning to marry her. It’s the type of thing I could see Kelsey agreeing to. Am I wrong?”

  Her glare wasn’t kind, and he was glad when she turned away. “No. You aren’t wrong. I could see Kelsey agreeing to something like that.” Her gaze swung back to him then, determined and fierce. “But that doesn’t take away the fact that she was a good friend to him, giving him everything he needed, according to what we just heard. And...none of his friends in there mentioned that she was engaged. Don’t you think they’d have said so if that was the case?”

  Unless there was a reason to keep the fact hidden. “It could be that Noah was living a double life as well, and keeping the two more separate than his community in there knew. And that the shell company that paid for the house where we think Kels was living is somehow tied to Charles! or other Willoughby holdings.”

  “We’re back to square one, though, on who fathered Kelsey’s baby.”

  “I need to speak with Noah’s mother. Obviously she knew Maya, since we know Maya went to company functions with Noah.”

  “She might not want to talk to us. Especially if she thinks that knowing Kelsey is what killed her son.”

  “And if Maya was as good a friend to Noah as we’ve heard, both in there,” he pointed to the building they were still parked behind, “and at Ambrosino’s, then it’s possible she’d welcome a conversation. Either way, I have to try.”

  “It’ll be best if I approach her...”

  He agreed, but was disliking more and more having her on the front lines.

  If something happened to Haley because he’d been distracted and missed something...

  Then he’d never forgive himself. He’d already failed her once. Eight years before when he’d purposely been late for their anniversary dinner because, with the way they’d been fighting, the walls between them, he hadn’t felt like there was much to celebrate. He’d refused to tell her where he’d been. He’d needed her to trust him. To show him that their love was real. Instead, she’d doubted him. Told him that maybe it was best that he leave.

  At that point he’d been relieved to do so. He’d checked himself into a hotel and when she’d called later, asking if he was alone, he hadn’t answered. Of course he’d been alone, sitting in his underwear watching television and feeling like a total loser. A failure.

  Doubting Haley’s motives for marrying him. How could they fight like they did, how could she argue with him so much, if she truly loved him?

  He’d figured that if she wanted to think he was cheating, if blaming him made it easier for her to let go of him, then that was on her. There was no marriage to save without trust.

  But he should have been honest with her. He should have stayed and tried to work on things. Instead, he’d booked. Bailed. He’d taken the easier way out.

  And he’d carried the guilt around with him ever since.

  She’d called him for help. She’d given him a chance to redeem himself.

  One way or the other, he was going to have to get it right.

  Chapter 13

  They were shown into a large open-floor-plan living area at the Willoughby estate just before six on Sunday night. Paul had made a couple of calls, he didn’t say to who and Haley didn’t ask, and they’d been given fifteen minutes of the grieving woman’s time. She’d yet to join them.

  Shivering, Haley wished she’d chosen a seat beside Paul on the gray leather couch instead of the armchair perpendicular to it. With the way she’d been starting to rely on him, to think of him as a friend even, she’d needed to put some more distance between them.

  Their time at the estate was brief, but it was bound to be emotional and that was something she was going to have to deal with, and contain, on her own.

  Mrs. Willoughby, when she arrived, was well-dressed in a brown tweed suit, professional looking, made up, with her shoulder-length blond hair gracing shoulders held with pride. Or seeming so, anyway.

  As Lenora Willoughby drew closer, choosing the armchair opposite Haley’s, Haley had another impression of middle-aged woman entirely. The woman’s eyes were well made up—but puffy. The lines on her face were camouflaged by expertly applied makeup, but they were still there. Still speaking their own truth.

  She cried as she spoke about her son. About how she’d known he was gay, but had been waiting for him to be ready to come out with her—and the rest of society. She’d loved him. His sexual preference didn’t change that at all, nor did it change how she saw him. “I thought I was being the most supportive by giving him space,” she said. “The journey was his. I didn’t want to make it more uncomfortable for him, pushing my way in if he wasn’t ready...”

  Tears flooding her eyes, Haley nodded, wishing she could take the woman in her arms and hug her. Parental pain was something very familiar to her. She dealt with every day at work. No mother or father wanted to see their child suffer—even if the suffering was just a blip in time.

  Lenora’s suffering was infinite. There’d be some healing, but the scar, the changed life, was permanent.

  “He knew you loved him,” she said. “And that love gave him the strength to not only admit to himself who he was, but to reach out for fulfillment, for love. Did you know he had a partner?” she asked. The story wasn’t technically hers to tell, but comforting parents through the death of their child was something she knew how to do.

  Long term, Lenora would hopefully get counseling.

  “I suspected,” she said. “Maya was always so respectful of him, physically. She didn’t hang on him, or act in any way like they were lovers.”

  Haley’s heart sank. She’d known Noah wasn’t the baby’s father, but a part of her heart had still hoped...that maybe.

  “How well did you know my sister?” Haley asked, since Lenora had introduced the subject. Since Kelsey was the reason she was there.

  “Not all that well, I’m sorry to say,” the older woman said, her expression filled with a compassion that made Haley tear up again. In her universe, she was the compassion giver. Other than from Jeanine, it didn’t often come back at her. “I know that she was good to my son, and that he was quite fond of her, but I only met her a few times. He never brought her here, but then he only came home a couple of times a week to have dinner with me.”

  Another thud to Haley’s heart. When she’d first walked in she’d imagined that she was seeing a place Kelsey had visited.

  “You don’t know where she was living?”

  “Yes, in a house on Calypso. I’ve never been there, but Noah mentioned it once, when we were talking about the neighborhood.”

  Heart thudding, Haley couldn’t help a glance at Paul. The house they’d been by the day before, the one with the wreath, had been on Calypso. With a return gaze that held steady calm, he reminded her to remain so.

  “Were you aware that she also went by another name?” Haley asked, afraid she was getting into deep waters, but also afraid to lose an opportunity to find out whatever Lenora might know.

  The woman frowned, cocked her head. “Noooo. Why would she do that?”

  “That’s one of the things we’d like to know,” Paul interjected, like a doctor soothing a jittery patient. “We didn’t know either, until just recently.”

  Lenora studied him for a long moment. “Who exactly are you?” she asked. “Jonathon vouched for you when he relayed your message about a visit, but he never said exactly how he knows you.”

  Haley had no idea who Jonathon was.

  “I’m a friend of Haley’s and... Maya’s,” he said. And her brain computed that she was not to mention Kelsey’s real name.

  “Paul and I have been friends since college,” she piped in.

  “And Jonathon handled some work for my father once,” Paul added.

  The woman nodded, seemingly satisfied, turned back to Haley. “I had no idea, until Jonathon called, that your sister, Maya,” she nodded toward Haley, “has...died...too.” Her lower lip trembled and she unfolded a tissue she’d been holding bunched in her fist to dab at her eyes.

  “In a car accident. Last month.”

  “Noah never mentioned that she’d died. I hadn’t seen Maya in months. He’d quit bringing her around, so maybe they weren’t as close anymore?” Lenora frowned again. “Though come to think of it, Noah didn’t mention much of anything here lately. He’d been so busy with starting at the company, moving into his office, and...he’d been more and more tense... I figured it had to do with starting his new life under a falsehood, pretending to be straight. I’d actually hoped he was on the verge of talking to me about it so I could encourage him to be honest and proud and let himself be happy. It’s what his father would have done. And what I wanted for him, too.”

  “Do you think he’d have had some pushback from the board?”

  Her shrug seemed comfortable on her. “Probably. We sell high end men’s clothes. Some would have said that Noah was set to be the new face of Charles! and that being so, the public’s view of the brand could change. But Noah and I together owned sixty percent of the company so we’d have been able to deal with that. If people’s perceptions changed, that’s all for the better. Our line is changing, too. That’s how fashion works.”

  “So...someone who might have known that Noah was gay, and who had stake in the company, could have had a problem with him coming out?” Paul’s question was pointed.

  Sitting up straighter, shoulders back, Lenora faced him. “What are you saying? You think someone hurt Noah? That his death wasn’t accidental?” The change in Lenora was obvious. Even her tone was more like the president of a board than a grieving mother.

  Paul glanced from Haley to the woman, seemed to make some kind of decision as he scooted more to the edge of the couch, facing Lenora.

  “I’m a licensed law enforcement officer,” he told her. “I work out of California as a skip tracer, and I’m Haley’s ex-husband.”

  Wow. Just wow. When Haley realized her mouth was hanging open, she closed it. Met Lenora’s gaze openly, and said, “Noah came to my home a few days ago. He left a note on my door that...led me to believe that my sister’s death might not be an accident. He returned the next afternoon to say only that he might have lead them to me.”

  “Lead who to you?”

  She shook her head. “We have no idea,” she said. “At first, we weren’t even sure his warnings were legitimate. The local police thought I was being pranked. But I couldn’t take that chance and called Paul. We didn’t even know who Noah was until today when we saw him on the news. My friend, who saw Noah at my house, recognized him.”

  “Noah was in California? On Friday?”

  Haley nodded.

  “I didn’t even know he’d left town.”

  “Maybe he didn’t want to bring any danger home to you.”

  The woman nodded, clearly distraught now, though holding up, too. “I was finding it hard to accept that he’d gone back to using drugs. Couldn’t believe it actually. I know they were doing an autopsy, but was trying to brace myself for the confirmation.”

  “I can’t tell you any differently,” Paul said. “I’m not working on your son’s case.” His tone soft, he poured compassionate warmth over the woman and for a split second, Haley was jealous of her. “This was all reported to the police in Santa Barbara, and now here,” Paul continued. “I have no proof of anything. It’s possible that Noah was tripping when he went to see Haley, and was imagining whatever danger he perceived to be there.”