Unable to stay still, she began to pace the room again. But there was nowhere to go.
Clay watched her as she prowled about the space. “You want to tell me what happened?”
Talking. Talking about it was good, she thought. Talking about it brought it into the light and maybe would make it fade away. She ran her hands along her arms as she spoke. She was cold.
“I just came down from putting Alex to bed. He likes me to read to him until he falls asleep, and sometimes it takes a while,” she said, a hint of a smile playing along her lips as if she was seeking comfort from the familiar act. He could remember when that smile had been his exclusive property. Now it belonged to anyone but him. “I came downstairs to put away the dishes and thought I heard something at the back of the house. There’s a sliding glass door that leads out to the back patio,” she explained. “When I got there, I didn’t see anyone, but then I thought I heard someone walking along the side of the house.”
She knew she should have checked it out herself first, but all she could think of was that it would leave Alex alone in the house.
“I thought I heard him rattling the window. I guess I panicked and called you.” Her shrug was dismissive as she ran her hands along her arms again. “Maybe it was the wind,” she muttered.
“The wind was dressed in black and wore sneakers.”
Her last shred of hope tore away from her fingertips. Even so, she fell back on another attempt at denial. She didn’t want to believe the worst, not about someone she’d worked so closely with. “Then it was a burglar.”
“Or someone trying to blend into the night until he got in. Let me take a look outside, see what I can find. You stay here,” he told her sternly as she began to follow him. To his surprise, Ilene nodded her head and remained where she was.
He was back within a few minutes, holding something in his hand. A drawing of some sort. “I don’t think whoever it was was trying to break in. He was trying to warn you off.”
“Warn me off?” she repeated, puzzled.
In response, Clay held up what he’d found taped to the window she’d heard being rattled. It was a drawing of three monkeys sitting side by side. One covered his mouth, another his ears, the third his eyes. The message was clear.
“This is only the first step. It’ll escalate. The next time he’ll be inside the house.”
She looked at Clay accusingly. “You’re scaring me.”
“Good,” he retorted flatly. “I want to. I also want you to take Janelle’s suggestion seriously.”
She didn’t want to. Janelle’s suggestion meant going into hiding. She wanted to stand her ground, to stay in her own home. To continue with her life as if nothing had happened.
But she knew that something
had
happened, and just as she’d said to him when he first came in, nothing was ever going to be the same again.
She couldn’t hide her head in the sand. Not when she had Alex to think of. “So what do I do?”
“Well, you can’t stay here. We can place you in a hotel and—” Clay began to outline the familiar course of action in these cases. She was a witness and had to be kept alive.
But Ilene was already adamantly shaking her head. “No.”
He could feel his temper suddenly getting frayed. No one had that kind of effect on him—except for her. But then, she could always make him feel things no one else could.
“Ilene, this isn’t the time to be stubborn.”
“I’m not being stubborn. But I won’t disrupt Alex’s life.”
He stared at her. “And having people break into his house and possibly abduct his mother or worse isn’t going to disrupt it? Think, Ilene, use your head. This time he was asleep, maybe next time he won’t be—”
She wasn’t going to let him scare her, at least not any more than she already was. “There’s got to be another solution.”
Did she think this was some kind of game that if she didn’t like it, she could just pick up all the marbles and go home? She’d set something in motion by bringing the audit’s discrepancies to light, something that couldn’t be stopped. All he could do was get her out of the way of the rolling boulder that threatened to crush her.
“There is.”
“What?” she demanded.
He didn’t like her tone, didn’t like the situation they found themselves in. Didn’t like to think what could happen to her if he couldn’t convince her. “First you can start by trusting me.”
Chapter 4
I
lene looked at the man standing before her for a long moment. How could he ask her to trust him after the history they had?
“If I remember correctly, that was where I made my mistake.”
The next moment she forced herself away from the emotional vortex that was sucking her into its midst. The past was over. She had to leave it behind her. She hadn’t called him because they had a history, she’d called him because she needed a policeman and he was familiar with what was going on. She hadn’t wanted to go into long explanations, she’d just wanted to have someone come quickly.
“Sorry, that was uncalled for.” Her voice was crisp, devoid of feeling. Ilene told herself that the only way she was going to get through this was to keep a very tight rein on her emotions. “After all, you’re just trying to do your job.”
Clay couldn’t shake the feeling he was out in the middle of nowhere, trying to find his way through a minefield. “Right, and my job is to keep you and your son safe even if you don’t want to be.”
Her temper erupted. “I never said I didn’t want to be safe. I just don’t want to have complete chaos.” She thought of her own childhood, of how she’d never felt as if she could count on anything. “A child needs stability in his life, otherwise there’s no foundation, nothing to build on.”
She could see by the expression on his face that Clay thought she was blowing this all out of proportion.
“And going to a hotel would cause chaos?” He wasn’t mocking her, but he might as well have been.
Ilene didn’t expect him to understand. He didn’t have children. And from what she gathered, his own life had been cushioned by a family that cared about him.
“He has a routine,” she insisted. “Kindergarten, friends. If I give up our liberty to a tag-team of policemen, how is that going to make Alex feel? I would be taking him away from everything that’s familiar to him.”
“Except for the most important ingredient. You,” Clay pointed out quietly. “And maybe your son’s more resilient than you think.” She just continued to look at him, not saying a word. She didn’t have to. Her eyes did it for her. Clay sighed, dragging his hand through his hair. He went back to the thought he’d had when she made her initial protest. “Okay, maybe I have an idea.”
Here came the trust part, she thought, her eyes never leaving his face. “Like what?”
Even though he was pretty sure his father would go along with this, he knew he couldn’t just take it for granted. “Give me a second.”
Turning from her, Clay took out his cell phone and pressed a preprogrammed number. It belonged to his father’s new cell phone. The cell phone had been an impromptu gift that hadn’t been all that warmly received. Andrew maintained that he didn’t need a cell phone. That the old-fashioned method of using a stationary telephone was just fine with him.
But Callie and Teri had insisted that he needed to get “with the times” and that this allowed them to always reach him if necessary. The deciding argument that he could also reach them whenever he wanted had finally turned the tide.
Now if his father had only remembered to leave it on, Clay thought, they’d be home free.
The cell phone on the other end rang a total of ten times before the annoying automatic message finally came on. Not bothering to listen to the theory that “the party you are trying to reach is either not answering or currently out of the calling area” Clay closed the phone and then opened it again. He hit redial immediately.
This time he got a response.
“Hello?”
“Dad, it’s Clay.” There was some kind of din accompanying his father’s voice. He wasn’t sure, but it sounded like singing. Very bad singing. “Why aren’t you answering your phone?”
“Was that you? I thought I heard something ringing, but it’s so damn noisy in here, I thought maybe it was just me.”
“You’re still at the party?” Clay had difficulty picturing his father in that kind of social situation. Ever since his mother had disappeared, his father had become the very core of the family unit. Because he’d become such a fixture, there were times Clay had to remind himself that his father needed to get out among his own kind.
He heard his father chuckle. In the background the noise level picked up. “You’re missing a hell of a time. By the way, Adrienne Ballard is asking after you.”
Patrol Officer Adrienne Ballard was just one of the scores of women he’d gone out with since his breakup with Ilene. Blond, vibrant and nicely endowed, Adrienne was a woman who knew how to enjoy herself and how not to complicate things by trying to bring up the matter of strings. In short, his kind of woman.
Still, the notion of seeing Adrienne right now did nothing for him. He tried to tell himself it was because he was on duty but the truth of it was after a handful of dates with the woman, he’d found himself getting bored, wanting to move on. She hadn’t kept his mind occupied—the way Ilene had.
“That’s nice,” he said dismissively. “Listen, Dad, I need a favor.”
“Ask.”
That he was one of the lucky ones was once again brought home to him. His father was always there, always willing to help. Clay knew by experience that not too many people could say that about either of their parents.
“How do you feel about having a houseguest? Two,” he amended, remembering the boy sleeping upstairs.
“Two?” The long pause on the other end surprised Clay. “Look, Clay, this is just as much your house as it is mine, you know that, but, call me old-fashioned, I draw the line at something kinky—”
The seriousness of the situation eroded for a moment as Clay struggled not to laugh. Obviously, his father thought of him as a wild stud. “Dad, Dad, hold it. It’s not like that. I need a safe place for a friend and her little boy.”
There was relief in the sigh Clay heard. “Oh, sure. When?”
“Now.” Clay kept his fingers mentally crossed.
His father didn’t disappoint him. “Right. I can be home in about fifteen minutes.”
Clay grinned. The man was a rock. He should have known there was nothing to worry about.
“Thanks, Dad.” Time to launch into the second phase of his plan. “Do you know if Shaw and Callie are still at the party?”
“Callie left with Brent, but Shaw’s still here.” Andrew made no effort to disguise his curiosity. “Why?”
Clay glanced toward Ilene and wasn’t surprised to see that she appeared to be listening to every word. Why shouldn’t she? It was her future that was being bandied about here. “I’m going to need decoys.”
This time the pause was pregnant, as if Andrew was entertaining various scenarios. “Is it that serious?”
“I wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t.”
“Well, I don’t know where Rayne is, I never do with that girl, but I did see Teri a few minutes ago, will she do?”
All three of his sisters had basically the same height and coloring. Their hair was lighter than Ilene’s, but their builds were similar and they just needed the suggestion of Ilene, not an exact duplicate. “Just as good. I’ll give them each a call. See you in a little while.”
Clay rang off. But before he could start punching in his brother’s cell phone number, Ilene placed her hand on his wrist. “Why do you need decoys?”
He saw the heightened state of alert in her eyes. Despite her protest, maybe she was finally beginning to see how really serious the situation was.
“Because if I’m right, they might still be watching the house, waiting for me to leave. If I leave with you, they’re going to follow.” He saw her brow furrow. “But not if they think we’ve already left.”
“I don’t understand.”
He didn’t have time to go over the particulars. There were things left to do. “Just leave it all to me.” He flashed her a smile. “Think of it as your tax dollars at work.”
She dropped her hand from his wrist. Like an arrow with a homing device, the smile he’d flashed at her had gone right through her. She doubted that he knew the effect he still had on her, and there was no way in hell she was ever going to let him even guess. But having him in charge of the situation did make her feel better.
“Why don’t you go and throw a few things together for you and the boy? Take some of his favorite toys so he doesn’t feel so uprooted,” he added.
“I’m whisking him out of his bed in the middle of the night. How can’t he feel uprooted?” she challenged. She stared at the drawing he’d taken down from her window. Clay was right, even if this was just a warning, it had spooked her. And it could only escalate from here.
“Because you’re whisking him away to another home. Trust me, he won’t be traumatized. My father’s very good with kids.”
“Your father?”
“I thought you and the boy could stay with him. Dad’s good with kids,” he repeated before he turned away to call his brother.
Within a few minutes he had everything arranged.
“Is this really necessary?”
Ilene left the question open to anyone who wanted to answer it. Clay had just admitted two people into her house via the patio door. From what she could ascertain, the man and woman had entered via the backyard. Which meant that they had to climb over the fence, coming from one of her neighbor’s yards. How could they have done that without being detected?
The same way whoever had left that warning had, she told herself. He’d been in her backyard before she’d heard him.
Nothing seemed safe anymore.
“This is all so cloak-and-dagger,” she protested when no one answered her question.
The woman was the first to speak. Her eyes were kind and her smile looked as if it had been lifted directly from Clay’s face.
“A lot more cloak, a lot less dagger,” she laughed. Extending her hand, she took Ilene’s in hers. “Hi, I’m Teri. Clay and I are twins,” she said in response to the quizzical look creasing Ilene’s brow. Then winked. “But I’m the pretty one.”
The man standing next to her looked as if he could be another twin, as well, except that he appeared to be a little older. “Shaw Cavanaugh.” He nodded his head toward his siblings. “They’re both homely enough to stop clocks,” he interjected. “We all know the family looks ran out after me.”
This wasn’t the time for an exchange of vague pleasantries, even though Clay did want to see the tension leave Ilene’s shoulders. Right now, she looked like a woman doing a tightrope crossing over an open cage of hungry lions.
“We’ll do introductions and snappy patter later,” Clay told them crisply. “You bring the doll?”
Teri nodded, producing it out of the backpack she’d brought with her. “Took a little digging.”
Clay’s eyebrows drew together as he looked at the doll in question. “That looks like Miss Betsy.” Miss Betsy had been his youngest sister, Rayne’s, cherished first doll. She and the doll had been inseparable, and she’d carried it around until the clothes that had come with the doll had all but disintegrated. Callie had sewn her a new outfit.
“First one I could find in the garage,” Teri answered glibly. “You said you were in a hurry and that it needed to be about the size of a four-year-old,” she reminded him. There was only one way the doll could remotely pass the test. Teri turned to Ilene. “Do you have a blanket handy?”
Ilene looked around before she spotted the light crocheted afghan she kept on the sofa. Alex liked to cuddle up beneath it early on Saturday mornings to watch cartoons. Fetching it, she brought it back. “Is this what you have in mind?”
Teri quickly wrapped the throw around the doll.
“Perfect,” Teri pronounced, laying the doll on the table. She scrutinized Ilene quickly, then glanced down to see that the other woman was wearing high heels. “We’re probably about the same height,” Teri judged. “I’m going to need to borrow one of your coats. Preferably with a hood if you have one.”
Ilene went to the hall closet where she kept her outerwear. She took out a parka that she favored, as well as a jacket for Alex. All the while, Ilene felt as if she was moving through water, as if she was sleepwalking, trapped in someone else’s dream.
Or someone else’s nightmare.
Ilene held out the parka to the other woman. “This do?”
Teri nodded. “It’ll do fine.” Shedding her own jacket, Teri quickly put on the one Ilene had brought to her as Clay and Shaw conferred on the side. The buzz of lowered voices was obviously getting their star performer edgy, she thought. “It’s going to be all right,” she promised Ilene.
And then Teri looked past the woman and toward the living room. There, his head drooping over to one side as he sat where he’d been placed on the sofa, was a little dark-haired boy, sound asleep amid all the activity.
Teri’s expression softened to the consistency of margarine left out on the kitchen counter way after breakfast was over. “That him?”
Ilene nodded. “Alex.”
“Nice name.” Teri quickly buttoned up the jacket and looked back to the woman whose life was getting tossed upside down. They had no details, not even a name for the woman. Only that Clay needed a favor. That was enough for any of them. “Don’t worry, it’ll all be over with soon.”
Ilene tried to smile. The shaky sigh escaped before she could stop it. “Not soon enough for me.”
“Are you about set?” Clay directed the question to his sister as he handed Shaw the keys to the car he’d left parked out front.
Shaw gave him his own. “My car’s parked in front of the house diagonally behind this one. It’s the one with the California pepper tree out in front.” He looked at his sister. Teri slipped the parka over her head and picked up the bundled doll, then nodded. “Give us about ten minutes,” Shaw told Clay.
A sliver of impatience clawed at Clay. “I know how to do this. I’m the one who called you.”
Shaw looked from his brother to Ilene. He then gave Clay’s hair a playful tousle, the way he had when they were younger and he was establishing order. Except now they were equals. “Just imparting a little wisdom, little brother,” Shaw told him with a grin.
“Well, that’ll fill a thimble or two,” Teri cracked. “C’mon, let’s go. I want to get back to the party. My beer’s getting warm.”
“Ah, the flower of youth,” Shaw commented with a shake of his head.