“Yes, of course. And I called the police. Morrow was here in less than two minutes, but he was asking as much about you as anything. His angle is clearly that someone’s pranking you. No one’s been hurt, and there’s been no crime. It’s not illegal to visit someone’s home, or wait to see them, unless there’s notice not to do so...”

  Obviously, something Morrow had said.

  Closing her eyes, Haley shut out the gas station parking lot where she’d stopped, the bright lights and people coming and going. She had to think.

  To take back control of the situation before...

  What?

  Before a baby was hurt?

  It could already be hurt.

  Or before she made a fool of herself, chasing a nonexistent child? Someone could very well be pranking her. Because of Kelsey.

  It wouldn’t be the first time, or even the tenth, that she’d been disrespected because of her relationship to her family. Guilty by association and all. Her mother and Kelsey’s lives always had seemed to be careening out of control. Even in good times.

  “Did you get a look at the guy?” she asked, her head buried in the hand at her forehead, eyes still shut tight. Focus came from inside.

  She knew how to do this. How to deal with the offshoots of loving her mom and little sister.

  “Somewhat,” Jeanine said, sounding no less worried at all. “I described him to Morrow, but he didn’t take any of it down.”

  Hearing the tension in Jeanine’s voice, she suddenly heard herself, as a teenager, asking for help and being blown off because of a person’s familiarity with her family history. High school principal. Guidance Counselor. Neighbors. Friends. You could fool people for a while, but eventually folks started to catch on to the fact that if you dealt with one of the beautiful Carmichael women, drama would follow. And facts would be skewed to make them appear as victims. Everyone knew about them. And while she’d been different, her reasonableness had been so overshadowed, so...quiet...no one seemed to hear her above the constant noise from her mother and sister.

  So why had she stayed in one of the towns where she’d grown up?

  “I’m sorry,” she said now, knowing exactly how Jeanine felt, how powerless and foolish you could be made to feel when you were trying to get someone to take you seriously and they couldn’t even seem to hear what you were saying.

  “Sorry for what?” Jeanine asked, her tone more normal. Matter-of-fact. “Morrow’s an ass. It’s you I’m concerned about, Hale. This guy, he was youngish, maybe Kelsey’s age. And kind of elfin looking. It was dark and with the hoodie I didn’t get a look at his face, but he stopped long enough to give me a message for you,” Jeanine’s words started to run into each other again in their haste to get out. “I didn’t tell Morrow that part, Haley. I probably should have, but I wanted to talk to you, first, because it...the message wasn’t criminal in nature. The kid’s scared and risking his life to help you is how I took it.”

  And yet Jeanine had called the police. As she should have done.

  Haley’s heart sank to a place where dread could pour in.

  “What did he say?”

  “He said to tell you that, I quote, ‘I might have led them here.’ He’s afraid that, because of him, you might be in danger.”

  “Led who there?”

  “I have no clue, and I know I should have told Morrow. I just thought that decision was yours, as the message was for you. And...he said one more thing, Haley. He said to tell you that he loved Kelsey.”

  Oh, God.

  Whether there was a baby or not, something was wrong. Enough so that a young man was running scared to the one person Kelsey had always run to for help. The one person Kelsey had counted on to get her out of the messes she inadvertently landed in.

  And then something else horrible occurred to her.

  Maybe her mind was getting caught up in the drama. Maybe she was wrong.

  But what if...

  What if Kelsey’s death hadn’t been an accident?

  The ropes were tightening around her. She could feel them closing in and couldn’t do a thing to slow their restriction.

  So, she put her car in gear and sped toward the one person she knew who could help. The man who brought out the absolute worst in her. The only person who’d ever imploded her life.

  Her ex-husband, Paul Wright.

  Chapter 3

  By the time he saw Haley’s headlights turn in down at the gate to his property, Paul had stopped pretending to work, and was standing at the window of his casita, watching for her.

  It wasn’t his job to keep her safe. Or his place to worry about her. No, her text message, letting him know that Jeanine had had a run-in with a guy at her house, had spurred the energy-driven activity he’d been engaged in, waiting for her. It would have been that way with any case.

  At least he’d keep telling himself that.

  The hooded visitor on her stoop just validated what he’d already suspected. Kelsey had somehow, once again, brought trouble literally to Haley’s doorstep, snagging Haley by the love Haley felt for her.

  And while Paul’s job was not about keeping Haley safe, he was charging himself with finding the danger that seemed to be seeking her out. Didn’t mean there were any vestiges left of the love he’d once felt for her.

  It only meant he was a decent guy.

  One who had something to find and didn’t have time to waste spinning his wheels in the wrong directions. He needed Haley’s input. Or to know that she didn’t have any. If all of Kelsey’s activities seemed completely normal to her older sister, including Kelsey’s disappearance over the past year, then that would be a start in itself.

  If Kelsey had a habit of disappearing, there’d be some pattern. Something that drove the absences...

  The headlights were almost upon him. Haley hadn’t wasted any time getting up his long drive. Nor had she slowed as she’d driven right past the front door of his house, using the circular drive out front to continue on to the casita just as he’d directed when’d he’d called earlier requesting her presence.

  A call that had taken all of sixty seconds. He’d stated his point. She’d agreed, accepted directions and had disconnected.

  Could they really get through this...seeing each other again...working together...without the past biting them in the ass?

  He’d like it if they could.

  And was pissed as hell as his penis sprang into life the second she slid one long leg out the driver’s door of her newish model middle-of-the-line four-door sedan.

  Had to be muscle memory. Habit. His subconscious playing with him because he’d known he was going to be seeing her and had refused to think about Haley personally, or dwell on their past.

  Let loose, a thought presented immediately. His ex-wife was one gorgeous woman. Without even trying. That long blond hair—the natural body and curls...didn’t matter that she kept it all swept back tightly in a ponytail, or in some kind of twist bun thing at that moment...he knew how those silky strands came to life when she let them free...

  Just as he knew, in intimate detail, how those long legs felt wrapped around a man’s neck...

  He was at the door before she got there. Pulled it open while she was still walking up. Noted the way the black shorts hugged her pelvis, jerked his gaze upward, and smacked it into the mouthwatering breasts loosely outlined by the white shirt she was wearing.

  Really? It wasn’t like she was the only beautiful woman in the world.

  After eight years he was still that attracted to her?

  With his body’s confirmation trying to take control of his brain, he stood his ground. Took in the area around them, illuminated by the security lights he kept on at all times, making certain that no one had followed her. That there were no unfamiliar shadows lurking on the edges of the estate.

  By the time she’d approached, his penis was shrinking again. The distraction had worked.

  Good to know. He could face reality. Deal with the feelings logically, rather than being held hostage by them.

  “Haley.” The crack in his voice was because his throat was dry. He stood back, gave her plenty of room to enter the large main room of the casita. And grabbed a bottle of water out of the refrigerator on the wall behind the door as she took in the place. The oversize leather couches set perpendicular to each other around the large wool rug in fall colors, put there to soften the porcelain tile floor. The entertainment center with large screen TV, but no home theater system. The small table with a couple of chairs to the back of the small kitchenette.

  He liked it. Wanted her to like it, too.

  The old Haley would have loved it. And she’d never have agreed to live in the mansion he’d bought a couple of years after their divorce. Part of the reason he’d bought it. It occurred to him, too late, that he should have had the meeting there.

  Meeting.

  “Here’s the file,” he said, moving quickly to his desk to retrieve the report he’d amassed on Kelsey in the short time he’d had. “I need you to look through it. Tell me anything you see that surprises you. And similarly, if there’s nothing that seems amiss, I need to know that, too.”

  She turned from her position facing the kitchen and the short hall beyond that led to a full bath and smallish bedroom. Studied his face for a few intense seconds before meeting his gaze.

  “Hi, Paul.”

  Nodding his reply he reached the file out a little farther—far enough that she could retrieve it if she leaned in with arm outstretched.

  “You’re looking good.”

  He’d run his fingers through his thick blond hair when he’d seen her car pull onto the property. But the khakis and polo shirt had been on him since he’d showered early that morning. They’d been meant as traveling clothes. Boat shoes included. Same went for his lack of a shave.

  “Your hair’s longer,” she said next.

  She’d always wanted him to grow it out a bit. Maybe that was why he had. Because she’d been right about some things. He could acknowledge that.

  “Time’s of the essence.” And unless she wanted to watch his penis lengthen and harden right there in front of her, they needed to get on with the business for which she’d come.

  “I know.” She took the file. Looked all professional and emergency-department-like as she took a brief look at the pages with a focused frown. She could have been looking at a stranger’s medical chart for all the calmness she presented. Barely breaking her concentration, she moved toward the little round table for two at the far end of the room.

  He turned on more light for her.

  “You want some water?” He sure as hell wasn’t going to offer her anything stronger, though he’d love a shot of something with some numbing power at the moment.

  Haley didn’t even look up as she shook her head, declining his offer. And there he stood, master of his universe, owner of the estate, unsure what to do with himself.

  Because one slender blonde had entered his domain.

  His ex-wife.

  She’d been there less than five minutes and already he was getting caught up in the messiness of the emotions she always brought with her.

  * * *

  Caught up in the overwhelming swirl of emotions seeing Paul again had brought on, Haley could hardly focus on the words on the page, let alone make sense of any of them. The way he stood there, watching her, made her want to jump up and confront him.

  Or leave.

  Confront him for helping her?

  Run out and lose the assistance she so desperately needed?

  Maybe he’d leave. They’d once promised each other that they’d never turn their backs or walk out on the other.

  But they weren’t married anymore. And she was here to focus on her sister.

  Tattoo. The word jumped out at her. Tattoo? What would Kelsey be doing paying for a tattoo?

  “This charge here...at a tattoo parlor...do they do things other than tattoos?”

  “Some do, some don’t. Why?” Paul approached and the air got thinner.

  But the way he sat down opposite her, fully focused on the sheet in her hand and what she had to tell him...pulled her right into the same place with him. On the case at hand. “Kelsey was deathly afraid of needles. She made me go with her last time she was in town and cut her foot and had to get a tetanus shot. And she also had a thing about tattoos. What one man might like another might not...”

  She stopped, thinking of how that sounded, and then remembered that she was with Paul.

  His nod was...nice. Being understood when it came to her family...that didn’t happen a lot. Jeanine and Paul were the only two who had ever...

  “I’ll start there,” he said, making a note of the line information on the list and handing the sheet back to her. He left her then, crossing the room to the massive desk on a shag-type carpeting that had been installed over that half of the room. Two minutes later he was on the phone with the parlor. Apparently, it was open past eight on Friday nights. It was in Vegas. Made sense.

  And, partially because it was under new ownership, the parlor manager had nothing to give him.

  She went back to her perusal, feeling a different kind of pain as she immersed herself fully in the task at hand. Grief hit her hard. Harder than it had yet.

  Seeing evidence of her sister’s life, feeling the choices Kelsey had made, noticing how many times she’d been to her favorite lingerie shop, made her loss seem that much more acute.

  And then... “Wait,” she said aloud, looking up to find Paul engrossed with his computer screen. In that split second, her heart ripped open and he was hers again. For the split second it took her heart to fuse shut. He was a skip tracer she’d hired. But for that second...the intensity he brought to his work...she’d been flung into the past. She’d loved that about him. He’d been just as focused on his studies, had carried straight As through his dual criminology and business majors, a tough feat even though with the money in his trust fund, he never had to actually hold a job.

  “What?” His glance completely impersonal, he looked over at her.

  “This...cigar club. I have no idea what it is...a bar maybe? Her credit card was used there several times, but Kelsey gets sick to her stomach at cigar smoke. Seriously, she can’t tolerate it. She says...said...it’s because her dad smoked them, and while I never really bought into that explanation, as other things about her dad didn’t make her throw up...cigars really did. They triggered her gag reflex.”

  As before, Paul came over, jotted down particulars about the line items she pointed out and then headed back over to his desk.

  “This makes no sense.” Ten minutes later, Haley was shaking her head again, getting up, that time, to head over to Paul, dropping down into one of the two leather armchairs in front of his desk. “These charges are all at The Gladiator.” She named one of the most expensive newer high-rise hotel properties on the Strip. “No way Kelsey would go there,” she said, perusing the list of charges, the amounts. The dates. Her sister would have had to have been staying there for days...

  Paul frowned, took the sheet, but barely glanced at it before he glanced over at her. “She would if she was dating someone who was a regular. I actually thought those charges fit...that the type of guys Kelsey was attracted to would fit right in at The Gladiator.”

  Haley shook her head again, swifter. With more force.

  “She dated Thomas Gladstone, the son of The Gladiator’s highest investor,” she said. “Thomas raped her. She was already sleeping with him. But I guess he liked it rough.” She shook her head again, thinking about the doctor’s office visit she’d made with her sister, in doubt herself at the time about Kelsey’s story. Until there’d been medical evidence. She’d begged Kelsey, along with the doctor, to press charges, but her sister wouldn’t do it. She’d seemed truly frightened. “I’m telling you—I know my sister. I get that she had her shortcomings, and even allow the fact that she put herself in precarious situations if she thought it would help some rich guy hook up with her on a permanent basis, but not this. Kelsey was really shaken up by this one. Didn’t date for over six months.” Her sister hadn’t gone that long without a date since she was thirteen years old.

  “How long ago was that?”

  “Three years ago.” A hundred wouldn’t have made a difference. Not even if the guy was dead and gone. For the first time in her life Kelsey had felt powerless. It had been a tough lesson for her sister to learn.

  Unfortunately, while it had kept her out of The Gladiator, and made her a bit more cautious and choosier, the incident hadn’t changed Kelsey’s overall lifestyle.

  Frowning again, Paul seemed intent on the page she’d handed him. Then asked for the full report, which she gave him, waiting silently while he thumbed through pages as though committing them to memory. He wasn’t a speed-reader, but he was close to it.

  When Paul looked up, he seemed to have come to some kind of decision. His expression resolute, he said, “I’ve found my starting place.”

  That was it? “Mind sharing it with me?”

  “All of the inconsistencies you’ve pointed out have one thing in common. The charges were all on the same credit card.”

  She’d been reading payees, dates and amounts. Hadn’t paid any attention to numbers.

  But... “I’m still working through last year,” she told him, having taken the report he gave her from page one, figuring there was a reason he wanted her to start there. “Shouldn’t I see if there’s anything more recent before you go any deeper?”

  “Last year is the most recent we’ve got.” His gaze softened as he looked at her. “I would have told you sooner, but I needed you to have an unbiased, and as unemotional as possible, look at what I had. If you’d known we’ve got nothing recent, that would have been on your mind...”