In some ways, having an associate help find the “skipper” could be a huge asset.

  Knowing that Haley was close by in case of danger was one less distraction. One less thing to worry about.

  But it was a huge distraction, too. Because of the risk imposed by the case.

  And the hidden dangers that came with being around his ex-wife.

  Haley had been back in his life for just over twenty-four hours and already the hours were filled with confusing circumstances. Nothing was clear-cut. Good and bad on both sides.

  But always...bottom line...the chance that a baby could be in danger topped everything. Kelsey wasn’t his skipper. A perhaps nonexistent baby was.

  Who’d ever heard of a skip tracer tracking down someone who might not even exist? It added an element to the job that made it seem nearly impossible. Because if there was no baby, it would be impossible to find it.

  Cloudy waters. That came with high emotions.

  Haley in a nutshell.

  And still, there might be a baby in danger.

  The only known associate of that child would have been the woman who bore the baby. Which meant that he had to start with Kelsey.

  He was on the right track.

  Had to make certain he stayed there. In spite of the huge distraction connected to his hotel room.

  “Pack your stuff. We’ll leave the room reservation, so we can use it if we choose, but take our things in case we go in another direction,” he said. “First stop, after grabbing something to eat on the way, is Kelsey’s last known address. I want to know when she moved out, if she moved out, maybe show her picture around, see if I can get anyone there to talk to me...”

  “That’s where I might be of help,” Haley called from inside her room. He heard a zipper. “As her sister, I can probably get people to have some compassion for the fact that she’s just passed, get them to open up where they otherwise might not and maybe learn some things.”

  She was right, of course.

  And it was good to focus on the ways in which she was useful.

  To the case.

  Only to the case. Right?

  When they arrived at Kelsey’s apartment building, Paul spoke to the representative on duty for the real estate company that managed the place and found that Kelsey had moved out during the last paid month of her rent, leaving an extra two weeks rent in lieu of notice of departure.

  She’d left no forwarding address. Any mail that had come for her after she vacated had been returned to the post office.

  And while Haley had been able to get several people in the building to talk to her about her sister, to offer condolences and share tidbits of their time with her, the only true information she managed to come away with was that Kelsey had lived there alone and that she’d put her things in storage when she’d first moved out. The woman next door, a young widow, had recommended the company and Kelsey had stopped later to say that she’d rented a climate controlled indoor unit, and to thank her.

  Kelsey hadn’t said why she’d needed a storage unit, or where she’d be staying in the meantime, and the woman hadn’t thought it appropriate to pry.

  She’d also added that Kelsey had hired a company to do the actual moving for her, but didn’t remember which one.

  As Haley climbed into the passenger side of the SUV in the building’s basement parking garage, she said, “We have no idea if she made it to wherever she was planning to move,” disappointment in her voice. “And no way to find out, since we have no idea where it was.”

  “We can check to see if she rented the storage space as she’d said she did. I didn’t see an accounting for it on any of her credit cards, but if she rented a place, there will be accounting there.”

  And they had other avenues awaiting them as well. They’d be making a physical stop at the tattoo parlor, Paul had told her on the way to the apartment building. And then on to the cigar club. He had a plan.

  Letting someone else take control didn’t come easy to her. She’d been the problem solver, the doer, since childhood.

  Still, if she wanted to find that baby—to know that her niece or nephew, if the baby really existed, was okay—then she had to sit back and trust Paul.

  It might prove to be the second-hardest thing she’d ever done.

  The first had been getting over him.

  When they stopped at the storage company, the owner first refused to give Paul access to records without a warrant. When presented with the legal proof that Kelsey was dead and that Haley, Kelsey’s closest living relative, executor, and beneficiary of her estate, wanted to take possession of any uncollected property in any unit with Kelsey’s name on it, he admitted that she’d had a unit. That she’d paid cash for one month’s rental. And that she’d emptied it within a month.

  He only ever saw her there once—the day she’d rented the space. After that he’d seen a moving company come in and unload, couldn’t remember which one exactly, something with the word man in it. Or men, and a few weeks later, she’d left a message that she’d moved out. He’d found the unit empty and swept clean.

  He had no idea who’d helped her get her things out. And their surveillance video, which would also require a warrant to access, was erased every six months.

  Another disappointment.

  The cigar club turned out to be private, upscale and discreet. Maybe it was a cover for high-limit card games. Maybe just a place for men to bring women they wanted to be with, but not be seen with. No one there was eager to look at a picture of Kelsey, and those who did, didn’t recognize her.

  Or wouldn’t admit that they did.

  When Paul asked for a comprehensive receipt, to know what Kelsey’s money had been spent on, he didn’t even get as far as being told he’d need a warrant, or providing proof of Haley’s right to know if there were possessions of Kelsey’s that belonged to her. He was told, quite succinctly, but with quiet and well-spoken words, that their computers were down.

  In such a way that he was certain they’d be down anytime he went back asking.

  If there was a crime, and he was an investigator, he could get a warrant for the computers, and maybe it would get to that point.

  It wasn’t there yet.

  One thing was becoming clear to him, though. Even before Kelsey disappeared, she’d lived a somewhat secretive life—being seen, but not giving up any personal or pertinent information about herself.

  The tattoo parlor offered a little more information, once Paul convinced the new owner that it was in his best interests to let Kelsey’s beneficiary know what Kelsey’s money had purchased.

  “Those receipts are for a tattoo. Administered in three parts. A name. Elaina.” The twentysomething, with as much body art covering him as clothes, read from the computer screen in front of him.

  And then he let them know they’d need a warrant to find out whose body had been the recipient of said art, as bodies were private entities.

  Could have been Kelsey’s.

  Most likely hadn’t been, as her body would no longer be protected under the same privacy laws.

  At least not if law enforcement was investigating a crime.

  Though he wasn’t yet telling Haley, he was fairly certain there’d been a crime. At least one. Kelsey’s murder.

  But while his tentative theory was based only on supposition and instinct, he wasn’t going to put it out there.

  Most particularly not to the deceased’s closest loved one.

  Who also happened to have once been Paul’s closest loved one.

  Haley had just stepped outside the tattoo parlor ahead of Paul, onto a sidewalk with throngs of people, when she felt a jerk on her forearm, just below the elbow.

  Thinking at first that she’d been jostled by the crowd, by someone maybe who’d had a little too much to drink and eager to get to the next slot machine and try to win a fortune, she stepped back toward the building, toward Paul, only to be held firmly in place alongside the base of a streetlamp. The pressure on her arm wasn’t just a passerby, nor was it letting up.

  As the intensity of the fingers holding her grew, bruising her skin, she froze, looking for Paul. Trying to warn him. Too shocked to be afraid, she stood there, feeling protected by the crowd, by the sheer number of witnesses, until she realized that with one backward thrust, she could be pushed into the open door of a car parked on the curb directly behind her.

  Paul appeared before her eyes, on his way to her, just as she opened her mouth to scream. And searing pain shot up to her shoulder as her arm took another jolt.

  “See how easy this could’ve happened?” A male voice said through seemingly gritted teeth, from just behind her, his lips close to the back of her ear. She could smell him. Something heavy and evergreenish. Way too much of it. The tips of his shiny leather shoes seemed at odds on the dirty sidewalk. “Go home.”

  And then, with a lurch forward due to a shove from the hand clutching her arm, she was free. Paul reached her, his concerned gaze landing on her face briefly, before turning toward the expensive dark luxury sedan that had pulled out into traffic.

  The crowd continued to push forward around them, anyone who’d been adjacent to her as she’d been held captive already up the street. Shaking, she focused on Paul’s tall strong form, his white shirt and black jeans, the way his chest rose and fell with each breath he took. And she took a breath in unison. And then another.

  She was fine.

  Her arm had already quit hurting—as though her attacker had known just how to hold it to inflict the most pain without causing actual physical injury.

  “No license plate. Damn!” Paul said, and then turned the intensity of his attention on her. “Let me see that,” he gently lifted her arm, brushing his thumb lightly over the red area where another man’s fingers had so recently been. “What did he say?”

  With an arm around her back, he moved her quickly to his SUV, parked just around the corner from the building, watching their backs and their fronts as they went. She could see his head in constant movement, like a video camera taking in the scene.

  “See how easy this could’ve happened.” She repeated, slowly, also watching the area around them, wanting to know for sure that the unpleasant episode was truly over. That there wasn’t another thug waiting to jump out and grab her.

  “And then he told me to go home.”

  Paul walked her to the passenger door, unlocking it with his key fob as they drew close, pulled open the door and shut it behind her once she was safely inside. He was around the front of the vehicle and in beside her in seconds, starting the engine and backing out immediately.

  “I’m not going home,” she told him, having already made up her mind. Obviously they were onto something, getting closer to it, or there’d have been no reason to warn her away. “But I wouldn’t mind making a stop at the police station.”

  Certain now that Thomas Gladstone had raped, abducted, and killed her sister—and fearing that the privileged fiend had her newborn niece or nephew, too—there was no way she could leave. She couldn’t turn her back on her family. Not for anything.

  And most certainly not when said family was a helpless innocent baby.

  “I’m not ready to call the police, yet. Even for a look at a surveillance camera that may have captured what just happened.” Paul’s words sounded non-negotiable. He was angry. The way he got angry. Silently. With a strength building up inside him that would drive him to resolve the situation even if the other party needed time to decompress and regain calm before having conversation.

  In a marriage the trait was counterproductive. But on the hunt for a kidnapper with a baby...she was suddenly thankful for the slow burn that wouldn’t stop.

  “Until we know what kind of money and connections we’re dealing with...until we know how far reaching this all is, I prefer to reach out to only those I know I can trust.”

  Still shaking from the encounter on the street, Haley started to feel just a tad bit safe again, sitting there with Paul. She waited for him to determine their next move. Taking deep breaths. Trying not to think about Kelsey, to imagine what horrible things she’d endured during her last months of life.

  And her last moments.

  Had she known she was being murdered? Had she known she was going to die? Or had it happened fast enough that she’d left life the way she came in? Unaware of what was happening to her.

  She’d been driving the car, had been the only occupant, during the one car crash that had taken her away. Had she escaped her captor? Thought she was free?

  Paul drove them outside the city and then pulled onto a narrow desert road, drove a mile or two and then pulled off into the hard dirt of the desert floor.

  “I had to make sure we weren’t being followed,” was all he said as he pulled out his phone.

  “Hud? Yeah, it’s me...”

  The familiar tone of voice... Paul talking to a close friend...could she really have just felt a pang of jealousy?

  Yeah, emotions were running high—understandably so—but she was not going back there. Friendship with Paul Wright was not an option. They couldn’t be friends. They hurt each other too much.

  They’d made that decision the night of their second anniversary. The night they’d decided together to divorce.

  She caught bits and pieces of the conversation. Paul reported in with a fairly thorough listing of what had transpired since he’d last spoken to his associate. Listened. Made arrangements to drop his car off where it would remain parked in someone’s extra garage, just in case someone was tracking the license plate. And to borrow another, older model SUV.

  “So, you agree, leaving the police out of it for now is probably best?”

  What? Paul was asking for an opinion of his decision?

  That was new.

  He listened some more. Haley could hear the rumble of a male voice, but couldn’t make out any words. They sounded serious, though not fraught with emotion.

  Exactly the type of conversation Paul needed. The kind she’d never seemed able to have with him.

  And the stab of jealousy segued into envy.

  Chapter 6

  Paul needed to find his calm. To get out of himself and into his work world. Focusing on becoming the best skip tracer he could be was what had saved him after his divorce. His job gave his life a meaning he’d been unable to find anywhere else.

  And then there came Haley again.

  Seeing that man holding Haley’s arm...he’d forgotten he was working. That he had a job to do. He’d plowed through the throng of people on the sidewalk to get to her side, period.

  And had found her just fine when he got there.

  He’d lost his head.

  That was why they’d split. Not because he’d been unfaithful, or because she’d married him for his money. But because they were too volatile together. Couldn’t think straight.

  The only way for them to be their best selves, or even to function well, was for them to be apart.

  He’d left. She’d been thankful.

  The divorce had been one of the quickest in history. Completely amicable. He’d opened a bank account for her, deposited her settlement.

  And had buried himself in finding the impossible. Become great at it.

  “I’m sorry you had to leave your car behind.” Haley spoke for the first time since they’d pulled away from Hudson’s associate’s house in a nondescript brown SUV. But Paul was still in his own head.

  He’d left. She’d been thankful.

  Now she wouldn’t go home.

  And he couldn’t leave her. Not until the job was done.

  He needed his entire focus in his work world to do that. And if that meant bringing Haley into it with him, then that’s what he had to do.

  Just work. Only work.

  “Hud and Win, the firm’s lead financial expert, traced the shell corporation that paid for Kelsey’s apartment,” he said, to that end.

  It was business. Not personal. Whether or not she was emotionally okay after her near abduction couldn’t be his concern. If she needed emotional assistance, she had Jeanine and her many colleagues—medical personnel in her life to whom she could turn.

  She had Gloria.

  And the rest of the life she’d built, quite successfully, without him.

  For all he knew, she had a boyfriend. Though not a live-in one. When she’d first called, she’d said that the note had been left on her door while she’d been at work and that no one else lived in the home.

  A home his settlement money had purchased for her?

  “And?” Head slightly bent, she was giving him a quizzical look.

  And...work world, buddy.

  “So far, the trail has led to other shell corporations, not all within the country, and that’s where the problem comes in. We have no way of tracing companies in the Cayman Islands, but they did find a home in Las Vegas, on Calypso, that was paid for by the same corporation as paid Kelsey’s rent. No one can trace it to Gladstone, yet. Or anyone, except other companies. We’re heading to that home now.”

  She nodded. Her beautiful features introspective as she stared out the front windshield. He had to hand it to her...if she was afraid, she was hiding the fear well.

  “Could be a corporate house,” she said, then. “You know, one of those places used for entertaining and to house out-of-town business associates.”

  The assumption was a good one.

  He didn’t bother saying so.

  No point in risking a fall back to personal by making her feel good.

  * * *

  The home was beautiful, in an upscale neighborhood with lots that were at least a couple of acres a piece. Two story, white with black shutters—a stick-built home with siding, not stucco, in the desert. An anomaly in and of itself. And the yard was all grass—another anomaly in the desert. The underground irrigation required to keep it so green had to come with an astronomical water bill.