He didn’t find the baby.

  Or even the baby daddy.

  But at two in the morning, shut inside the bathroom with the water running so as not to disturb Haley, he called Duane Endives. There was evidence of a known hit man who’d been parked outside a coffee shop just down the street from the Calypso house, as seen from a Google photo, and also caught on a social media post. The man had shown up on a Gladstone people search as a known associate.

  And he lived in Pahrump.

  With that, and the pages of circumstantial evidence Paul had already emailed over, Endives could get a warrant for the man’s finances. In the morning, when the judge was in his chambers. While a hit man’s arrest was paramount to Paul, it wouldn’t be something a judge would want to be called out of bed for.

  Most particularly if a Gladstone was involved. He’d want a chance to be fully awake and aware before he signed something like that.

  It might or might not be the guy who almost killed them that afternoon. Could be or wouldn’t be the man who’d kidnapped Haley the day before. There was a chance the guy had killed Kelsey. And perhaps Noah, too. That all remained to be seen.

  Very soon, though, the hired gun’s finances would open up to him. They were going to know who’d hired him, and then everything would fall into place. Because once they found the payer, they’d have evidence for a warrant on that person’s finances. And that would show them whether or not there were any other murder-for-hire types on the payroll.

  Feeling more like himself than he had since before Sarah’s departure, he lay down on the unmade bed, intending just to rest his eyes for a few, and woke up to the rustling of covers in the bed beside him. Lying still, he listened as Haley grabbed her bag and made her way quietly to the bathroom, closing the door with barely a sound.

  The room’s darkness relayed that dawn hadn’t yet arrived, but a quick glance at the clock told him three hours had passed since he’d lain down.

  And then he heard the click of the lock on the bathroom door.

  An afterthought?

  One for which he was thankful.

  Relaxing, he focused on the relief, trying to ignore a sense of sadness that came with it, but eventually, allowed that, too. Just as he had the night he and Haley had agreed to divorce.

  It would come anyway, he’d learned, and would hit harder if it had to fight its way through.

  The sense of déjà vu could have been amusing, had it not been so acute. How relief and sadness could play equally on the same instrument at the same time, he didn’t know, but when Haley was in his life, the dichotomous tunes blew with equal strength.

  As though it were yesterday, feelings from eight years before played him.

  He’d let her believe there was another woman because he’d known that that was the only way she’d ever be able to let him go. Just as he’d known that if she didn’t let go of him, he’d never leave her. Yet they’d both been miserable together.

  Not all the time.

  There’d been incredibly right moments, hours, days. The happiest he’d ever known. Funny how after so many years, he could remember them more clearly than he’d been able to when he’d been living them. And yet, he knew the recollections were accurate.

  The night before was proof positive of them.

  But the great times hadn’t all been about sex. He and Haley had been so happy together on vacation. They’d been content just to be with each other. Had joyfully engaged in activities that either one of them suggested. Had never fought.

  But at home, when real life and responsibility took hold...

  He shook his head.

  He’d never been happier than he had been with her.

  But he’d never been angrier, either.

  Or more disappointed.

  And neither had she.

  They’d discussed the situation calmly, and at length, the night of their second anniversary, sharing the bottle of wine she’d bought for the celebratory dinner that had been ruined by the fight that had ensued due to his tardiness.

  And that lock on the bathroom door—it was just like that calm discussion had been. Using conscious thought and taking action to prevent them from hurting each other any further.

  Where that left them in terms of the day ahead, he didn’t know.

  Hoped it meant she’d be heading to the airport.

  But he didn’t hold his breath on that, either.

  * * *

  She had to talk to him. To make her feelings known. Or risk the past.

  That could most definitely not happen. She’d barely survived the first time. Getting over Paul...even eight years later it was a work in progress.

  “Just toast, please,” she told the waitress who approached their table in the crowded café, one of many eateries with casino views on the hotel’s ground floor.

  “You need more than that,” Paul interrupted, before she could add on the coffee.

  “I’m not really hungry,” she told him, and smiled at the older woman standing at the edge of their booth as though she had all day to wait around.

  “Bring us two King of Hearts breakfasts and two coffees,” he told the woman and while Haley bristled, she chose to hold her tongue.

  He couldn’t force-feed her. She’d eat what she wanted, leave the rest or watch him eat it. There were bigger issues before them.

  In new knee-length red shorts and a red, white and black peasant top, she’d come out of the bathroom of their room prepared to have it out with him. He’d been dressed in jeans and a white short-sleeved pullover and at the door, waiting to go down to breakfast. They hadn’t been alone since. Not in the hall, not in the elevator, and most definitely not in the café.

  Almost as though he was avoiding any personal conversation. They hadn’t eaten inside a restaurant since they’d embarked on their strange and tumultuous journey. Nor had they left their bags in their room as they had that morning.

  Something was definitely up.

  * * *

  “There’ve been some developments in the case,” he said, as soon as the waitress had filled their cups with coffee and left them sitting across from each other in the booth for two.

  Giving herself a mental shake, and a reminder that the only thing that really mattered was the reason she and Paul were together—the baby—Haley leaned forward. With so many excited conversations going on around them, not to mention the heightened energy level that generally bounced around casino atmospheres, she had to move closer to him to be certain she heard everything.

  Without meeting her gaze directly, he gave her a quick rundown of the work he’d done after she fell asleep the night before.

  Which explained why she’d awoken with them in separate beds. He’d been up working, not just moving to get away from her.

  “I found a suspected hit man, guy who goes by the name of Blue Colonial, watching the Calypso street home. Guy’s from Pahrump, and has ties to Gladstone,” he said, telling her about his middle-of-the-night call to Duane Endives. And then added, “I had a call back from the detective while you were showering. He got the warrant for Colonial’s financials, and they have officers watching Colonial until an arrest can be made.”

  Which explained the bags still in the room and the restaurant meal. He wasn’t as worried for their safety.

  That piece of information registered, and was good, but it didn’t stem the thread of alarm shooting through her. The tightening in her chest. It was going to end, one way or another. And what if the baby was already gone?

  Or...would she have held a new family member by nightfall?

  When excited butterflies attacked her midregion, she pushed the baby-in-her-arms thought aside. One thing at a time. She couldn’t afford to borrow trouble—or joy, either, as they’d take focus she needed in the moment.

  Focus she might need to stay alive.

  The joy, or the sorrow, those were hers to live as they came to her. If they came to her.

  “Gladstone really is behind all this?” she asked him, afraid all over again. She hadn’t detected a single hope of humanitarian capability within the man. Not for her sister, certainly.

  So, not for her baby?

  The shrug Paul gave as an answer didn’t surprise her.

  The sudden, sensual memory provoked by the movement of his shoulder did. Her way of dealing with the fear, she supposed. The heightened emotion. Channel to something that brought pleasure.

  That’s what sex between her and Paul had been the night before.

  And she couldn’t leave it lying there between them. Most particularly not with the day ahead looking to finally be productive, but emotionally taxing, too.

  They had to kill it off.

  Before it destroyed either one of them.

  “About last night...” She looked him straight in the eye. And was surprised to see him looking right back at her. And nodding.

  “It was so us, wasn’t it?” he said, not with a smile, or with affection.

  But with the bone-deep sadness that had been the backbone of the last months of their marriage.

  “The sex was always good between us,” she admitted.

  “And helped us ignore everything that wasn’t.”

  He was right. Completely right.

  And with that, the tension toward him eased inside her. When it came to them, she and Paul were on the same side.

  “So, we’re agreed that it was a one-off?” she asked, still holding his gaze.

  “One-hundred-percent.”

  Her heart hurting, she blinked back tears, but she smiled, too.

  “I think, maybe, we just turned a major corner,” she said aloud.

  “I’d like to think so, too.” He slid his hand across the table, palm up. “Friends?” he asked.

  “Friends.” She placed her hand on top of his, and when his fingers closed around it, she held his, too.

  And didn’t feel as alone anymore.

  * * *

  As soon as breakfast was done, Paul was back upstairs at his computer. He’d sent photos to Haley and she was going through them on her phone—various things he’d picked up from social media, people searches and search engines the night before that he hadn’t yet looked at. Paul himself was busy scouring through the financial records of a man he’d never met. One who was not a nice guy, based on the things he purchased—and the people who paid him.

  Gladstone wasn’t the only name on the list that Paul recognized.

  Colonial had been paid by another name well-known to Paul. A family known to have Mafia ties without anything ever having been proven to the point of prosecution.

  Within half an hour of getting the records, he’d put another call in to Endives, who was picking Gladstone up for questioning.

  Haley, who’d been sitting quietly in the chair opposite him, scrolling, with a frown marring her beautiful forehead, and her perennial ponytail bobbing slightly as her head did, looked over as he hung up the phone.

  “You’re thinking it’s Gladstone.”

  He wasn’t going to lie to her. Had hoped for a better scenario. “The facts are pointing in that direction,” he told her. Knowing what was coming next.

  Wishing he didn’t have to break her heart another time. “And there’s no sign of a baby in the Gladstone family.” He did it quickly, but then added a ray of hope he’d told himself he wouldn’t dole out. “But we haven’t seen their finances, yet. Something might turn up.”

  She nodded. He went back to work.

  And five minutes later exclaimed, “Holy crap.”

  “What?The table bumped against him with the force of her ejection from her chair and she was beside him, looking over his shoulder.

  And he pointed.

  Her gaze turned to the screen; she seemed to be studying. He waited.

  She leaned in closer, so close he could smell the unique scent that was only her, and had to restrain himself from wrapping his arms around her.

  In comfort.

  Not desire.

  With a need to protect, not her body, but her heart. To give her strength.

  If she hadn’t stood at that moment, he might have given in to the drive to take on her burdens personally.

  “The shell company that paid for the Calypso house, for Kelsey’s apartment for...” Her voice broke and she stared at him, her gaze too wide, distant and filled with horror. “That company paid Blue Colonial.”

  The hit man.

  Backing up, she shook her head, over and over. Bumped into the bed, but didn’t sit. She sidestepped to the end of it. Kept taking backward steps, as though if she could distance herself, or somehow undo the walking that had brought her that point, she could spare herself what was to come.

  “The man who was supporting Kelsey, the one she was so in love with, who put a two-carat diamond on her finger and was going to marry her, hired a hit man to kill her?”

  “Her death has been ruled an accident.” The words burst out of him. As though he could still somehow spare her.

  “And the baby...” Tears filled her eyes.

  Her guess was probably right.

  “Once we get access to Gladstone’s financials, we’ll have a better chance to connect the shell company to him,” he was saying when she interrupted him.

  “No way Kelsey would have knowingly been involved with Gladstone,” she said, her tone harsh. “I know my sister. She would not have lived with the man, even for all the money in the world. I’d believe that he somehow got to her, forced sex on her again, her ending up pregnant and him wanting her dead, but not that she’d have lived in a home he was paying for...”

  He’d known that, of course. What she would and would not allow herself to accept. Was about to try somehow to prepare her to accept the unacceptable when his phone rang another time.

  Picking it up to silence it, he saw Endives’s name. And kept his eyes trained on Haley, trying to hold her up with the strength of his gaze as he answered.

  Listened.

  And, dropping his phone to the table, stood, went to Haley, and was there to catch her as he said, “With the shell company as evidence, they picked up Colonial for questioning. He admits to being paid to keep an eye on Kelsey but swears he didn’t hurt her, or Noah. He doesn’t know who hired him. Said he got a note in the mail, was told to call a burner phone with his bank account number. A deposit was made to it and he was told who to watch, told to leave the video on an SD card in a tin box in the base of a hollow tree just outside Pahrump, which he did, and a large payment was made to his account. He has airtight alibis for the night Noah died, for Monday morning at Sister’s and for yesterday...”

  The worst was yet to come.

  “He swears it wasn’t Gladstone, Haley. Said that Gladstone had asked him two or three years ago, just in theory, how it would work to ‘off her,’ his words, but that nothing came of it. Said he was surprised to see it was the same woman he was watching. Two different names. Gladstone knew her as Kelsey, his new hire referred to her as Maya Ambrose. He also confirmed that she was pregnant. After he made the video, and deposited it, he never heard from the person again. That was four months ago.”

  Her eyes lit up and he quickly continued. “The person who hired him was from Pahrump. Came up in the conversation to do with leaving the SD card with the video recording in the tree.”

  It only took a second for reality to dawn. Her entire system seemed to shut down. Her expression dropped, her shoulders fell. And the light in her eyes went dim.

  “Sister’s Ranch,” she said.

  Back to the attorney. To Pahrump. Back to where Haley had been abducted.

  “Right now, it’s pointing that way.” Was the only way pieces were fitting together. “Endives already has a warrant to get the financial records for the shell company, but since it’s registered to a PO box, that might take a bit.”

  “The surveillance tape,” Haley blurted, holding his gaze. He didn’t look away, though he’d have liked to have done so. The moisture in her eyes, the need...they yanked things out of him that he didn’t have to give. “If the guy’s a professional...even if he isn’t...he’d have made a copy.”

  He nodded, not surprised that she’d jumped on that. Haley was a smart woman. And her ability to focus, even in the midst of turmoil, was part of what had made him fall in love with her.

  “They’ve got a photo of a man going in and out of the house,” he said.

  “And?”

  “It’s not Gladstone. They don’t know who it is yet, but it’s not Gladstone. Endives’s team is working on ID’ing him, but in the meantime, he’s sending the footage here. In case you know who he is.”

  With one last check that she was still with him, standing on her own and ready to continue the fight, he moved back to his computer. Called up the footage.

  Opened it. Didn’t recognize the guy. Not from any of the photos and searches he’d done over the past three days. Haley’s gaze was pinned on him. He could feel it.

  “Come look,” he invited.

  She did. Falling down into the chair he’d vacated to watch the video several times. Whether to try to get something from the man, or to watch her pregnant sister open the door to him, he couldn’t be sure.

  But he could make a damn good guess. She was focused on Kelsey, absorbing everything she could out of the few seconds of tape. Taking it into her heart, where it would remain for the rest of her life.

  Because that was Haley.

  With Kelsey.

  Loving and loyal.

  Unconditionally.

  Even after death.

  And it hit him.

  He’d never fully trusted Haley because he’d never felt that she’d loved him as deeply, as eternally, as she’d loved her family.

  And it got worse.

  He really was jealous of his ex-wife’s little sister—and had been all along.