Authors: Liz Talley
“Yes,” the detective said. “As soon as we knew that your brother exited via another gate, we had the team switch cameras and they saw him. It was just as Cleveland said. He seemingly comes out of nowhere, hits Cleveland, snatches Kara all with one hand and runs off camera.”
“Darin saved her life!” Lynn jumped up. “They're together and he saved her life!”
Grant was beside her and she grabbed his hand again in both of hers. “They're together, Grant.”
“And we have no idea where they are,” he reminded her. “Kara's three and Darin's got limited abilities,” he reminded her.
“I know.” She did, too. And she could see that Grant was heavy with the weight of responsibility for his handicapped brother. If Darin failed Kara, Grant would never forgive himself.
Which was crazy. No matter what happened, Darin had saved Kara's life. It was on tape.
Her little girl was going to be all right.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
O
NCE
G
RANT
KNEW
for certain that Darin was outside The Lemonade Stand complex, he couldn't wait any longer.
The fact that he had Kara Duncan in his care, a child caring for a child, nothing was going to stop him from going out to find them.
He wasn't all that surprised when Lynn backed up his idea, saying that she was going to accompany him.
Smith didn't like the idea.
“We're free citizens,” Grant stated in no uncertain terms. “If Darin sees cops looking around, calling his name, he's just as likely to hide as to come out,” he said, thinking clearly for the first time in more than two hours.
The fog had lifted. He had to help his brother.
“Lynn and I know all of the places he's been in the area,” he continued. “And if Darin hears us call, he'll respond, even if he's hiding.”
“He lacks problem-solving skills,” Lynn said, as though she was Darin's nurse, not a friend. “And has emotional lapses, as well. We stand a much better chance of finding them before dark if we're out there looking for them.”
They'd waited for official word. It was time to act.
* * *
T
HEY
CHECKED
BOTH
restaurants they'd been to on their dates, including bathrooms and alcoves. They'd shown Darin's and Kara's pictures around and were told officers had already been there looking for the pair.
Grant found corners and crevices, potential hiding places, everywhere.
“You really think he'd cram himself and Kara into a corner and just wait?” she asked him.
“I know he would if he felt threatened,” Grant said as they climbed back into his truck. A vehicle Darin would recognize if he saw it and be willing to approach. “He got scared one time when I told him to stand outside the grocery store while I wheeled the cart back inside the door. When I came out he was standing between a pillar and a trash receptacle. Once, on a job, I had him wait outside while I delivered a bill to a woman and when I turned around he was under a stairwell.”
He sounded ashamed. Like it was his fault that Darin had felt unsafe enough to hide. Lynn's heart went out to him so completely in that moment when all aspects of normal daily life were stripped away.
If she focused on Darin and Grant, she could still breathe. Could push forward and find Darin and Kara.
As Lynn kept her gaze peeled out the window, Grant drove slowly, ignoring the honks he was getting. If he heard them he didn't seem to notice. He stopped a couple more times. Jumped out of the truck to look behind a bin and under a stoop.
Lynn's phone rang while he was bent over, peering beneath cement on a quiet street a mile or so from the Stand.
It was Maddie's number.
“They told me I could call you, Lynn,” the woman said, her slow speech even more garbled than usual. The poor woman's lip was probably bleeding from chewing on it from nerves. And would need salve for the next several days.
“Of course you can call me,” she said with a heavy ache in her heart. Why couldn't this be a normal day? With Maddie and Kara at home waiting for her?
Why couldn't life ever just be what you thought?
“I told them I had to call you because I think I know where Darin and Kara are,” the woman continued as though Lynn hadn't spoken. “I know because I did a bad thing and you're going to be mad at me, but I have to tell you now because you have to find Darin and Kara and...”
She sniffed, and Lynn, impatient and frantic, said, “Maddie, just tell me where they are.”
The other woman started to cry. “I...I...”
She took a deep breath. And glanced at Grant as he climbed back into the truck.
Maddie.
She mouthed the word. And tried to tell him with her eyes that she was about to fly out the window. To ask him to hold her in place and breathe life into her lungs so she could get through this.
She needed the peace that he brought her.
“It's okay, sweetie. I'm not mad, I swear to you, Maddie. And you know I never lie to you, right? That's our deal.”
“But you yelled....”
“I didn't yell, sweetie. I'm worried about Kara and Darin and we need to find them in a hurry. That's all. I'm in a hurry.”
She knew how to help Maddie express herself. It was up to her to stay calm. Her panic would incite Maddie's.
“Please, sweetie, we're family, right? We've talked about that. And right now Darin and Kara need you to be strong for them. To not worry about someone getting mad at you. For Darin and Kara. You understand?”
She hoped Sara was on the other end of the line with Maddie, listening in. Doing what she could to keep the woman's panic at bay so she could think clearly.
“Now, tell me where they are.”
“At the beach.” Maddie's voice was firm. A tone unfamiliar to Lynn. Something she'd ponder later.
“At the beach?”
“Building a sand castle,” Maddie said, and Lynn's hopes dashed to the ground again.
“That's what you and Darin did,” she said now. “Not what Darin and Kara are doing.”
“No, Lynn, Darin and I went to a different place on the beach without you and Grant, and I know that's where they are and I told the lady police officer when she told me that I could save them, but they don't know exactly where and you do so you could go get them.”
“I know where they are? But it's not the same place you and Darin built your sand castle?”
She put the phone on speaker and whispered to Grant, “Head toward the beach.”
He had the truck in traffic immediately, his face lined with tension.
“Yes, Lynn. Darin and I... A couple of weeks ago Grant dropped Darin off early in the morning a long time before his therapy and he was going to pick weeds, but he didn't. He came to my house and we snuck out the back door that Darin snuck out today. He knew where to find it because of going through it with his brother, Grant.”
“You two have left campus before?”
A heavy sigh on the line had her taking another deep breath. “Yes, and I knew that you would be mad. We're in big trouble.”
“You aren't in trouble,” Lynn assured the woman. “You are being a big help, Maddie. Now tell me the rest.”
Maddie could only do things in Maddie's time. Regardless of how pressured the rest of them felt. Or how serious the emergency.
Maddie's mind only worked so fast.
“Darin has been watching the roads every day when Grant drives him and he said he knew how to get us to the beach so we could build another sand castle like we did on our first date. And so we did.”
Her pulse thrumming, Lynn exchanged a glance with Darin.
“You two made it to the beach and back.”
“Yes, Lynn, and I'm sorry. I didn't follow the rules and now I might have to leave here and...” Her voice broke.
“You won't have to leave, Maddie,” Lynn assured the other woman. She'd take Maddie into her own home and hire a nursemaid if the need arose, but Maddie wasn't going to lose her home or her family.
She also knew Lila well enough to know that she would not require Maddie to resign her position, although there would be some kind of accountability for having broken the rules.
Grant made a quick turn and another, sending her sideways in her seat as he took a back route to the beach.
“Well, if I do have to move I'll still save Darin and Kara,” Maddie said now, her voice thick with tears. “Darin said anytime either of us gets in trouble, we should have a safe place to go and he said the place we built the sand castle wasn't safe because it's out in the open. He says
our
safe place would be where we can build sand castles and not be out in the open, and I think he went there.”
“And I know where that is?”
“Uh-huh.”
She tried to be patient, but blurted, “Where is it, Maddie?” managing to keep her tone soft, at least.
“Do you remember when we went on our date and went to the beach and Darin and I built that sand castle and then we got scared because we couldn't find you to show it to you?”
Grant turned again. And was pulling into the public lot he'd parked in that night.
She looked all around her, hopeful. And saw nothing except an expanse of beach and massive waves that were strong enough to wash a three-year-old out to sea in the space of a blink.
“Yes, I remember,” she said, afraid they'd just wasted more precious time on a goose chase.
“Well, Darin and I said our special place is where you and Grant came from when we found you. Because that was our safe time. You found us because it wasn't out in the open.”
“The little cove?” she asked, remembering the cliff face jutting out onto the beach. The cove where Grant had first kissed her.
“Yes, Lynn, that's where they are. I just know it.”
They were out of the truck, striding across the sand. Lynn cursed the thick substance that squished when she walked and slowed them down.
“Have you talked to Darin, Maddie?” she asked.
“No, Lynn. He doesn't answer his phone.”
Promising Maddie that she would call her back soon and reassuring her that she was very proud of her for telling the truth, Lynn rang off with an “I love you” that came straight from her heart.
Maddie was challenged. And sometimes challenging, but Lynn loved her dearly.
And she understood the pained expression on Grant's face as they sprayed sand behind them with the swiftness of their gait.
Just as she loved Maddie and Kara, Grant loved his brother.
Would they find them?
And if they did, would they be alive? Uninjured?
She took his hand as they drew near to the cove.
He held on.
And as they rounded the corner, they started to run.
Up ahead, protected by a giant cliff face, sat a tall man and a very small girl, side by side in the sand, their expressions serious as they built the most magnificent sand castle Lynn had ever seen.
* * *
“I'
M
SORRY
, G
RANT
. I
left.”
Taking one hand off the wheel of the truck, Grant gave his brother's shoulder a squeeze. “You don't owe anyone an apology, Darin,” he said, swallowing back the emotion he'd been hard-pressed to contain during the long, grueling hours they'd just passed. First, finding out that his brother was missing, then Kara; the helplessness of not being able to do anything; the frantic search.
And finally, spotting Darin and Kara on the beach, calling out to Darin and hearing his brother's voice say, quite calmly, “See, little Kara, I told you that if we built a very big castle, they would come to see it and take us home. I told you the bad man couldn't get us here.”
“You saved a little girl's life today, bro,” he said with a sideways glance at his brother.
He couldn't stop looking at him.
And was thinking about hunting down the baby monitor he'd placed in Darin's room for the first couple of years after his brother's accident. It was out in the shed. In a bin on the top shelf with other old electronics.
It might possibly be the only way Grant was going to get any rest that night.
Unless he crashed on the couch. Darin would have to get past him to get to the front door.
“I just showed her how to build a sand castle, Grant,” Darin said now. “You and Lynn saved us.”
“You saved her from a man who was going to kidnap her.”
“I hit a bad man, but it wasn't hard to do. It hurt my hand, though.”
Life in Darin's world was so simple. And more complicated than he felt equipped to handle some days.
But his brother was with him. Safe. He'd saved Kara's life.
Grant had nothing more to ask.
* * *
L
YNN
WAS
IN
her room, purportedly to sleep. The lights were out. And she lay, fully clothed, on top of her covers.
She'd reached Brandon before he'd boarded his plane and now that he knew Kara was safe, unharmed and unaware of the horror she'd narrowly escaped, he'd decided he would wait and fly down as usual over the weekend.
As far as Kara knew, she'd spent the day with Darin playing in the sand. She'd been unaware of the “bad man” Darin had talked about, thinking only that he'd snatched her up because she'd been left behind by Maddie's car.
It had all transpired so quickly, Kara hadn't known what was happening.
But she'd rattled on and on about her and Darin's castle. To her father on the phone. At the dinner table, through her bath and bedtime story. And was probably asleep dreaming about castles and princesses at that very moment.
Lynn knew about the bad man. And the near-miss. And she couldn't let her guard down enough to get undressed, let alone sleep.
She could have lost Kara that day. Risked losing the little girl every single day.
Just as she'd lost Brandon. Her experience with him had taught her that loving someone made you a hostage to fateâto their choices, their fates.
She'd kept herself free from any kind of romantic commitment so she didn't have to face again the burned ashes of an empty life.
But in reality, any kind of love held her hostage. And she couldn't stop her heart from caring.
Tension emanated from her pores and she couldn't make it stop.
As evidenced by the way she jumped at the knock on her open bedroom door.
“Lynn?”
The voice was Maddie's. She'd insisted that the other woman spend the night with them. Because Kara hadn't liked it that Maddie had driven off without her. Because Maddie had saved Kara's life and was in perpetual panic mode at the thought of being in trouble for breaking the rules with Darin.