Nikki felt her heart freeze at the realization. “Your daughter had Down’s syndrome?”
He nodded, closing his eyes.
“Oh my God.”
“Amy was severely retarded. She wouldn’t have understood what he was doing to her,” he said hoarsely, his eyes filled with pain. “She just understood that he was hurting her and that Daddy wasn’t stopping him.”
Nikki’s bottom lip trembled.
“When I found her body,” he gasped, his voice breaking, “I just wanted to die, Nikki. I wanted to die so I could see Amy, so I could hold her again and tell her how damn sorry Daddy was.”
Tears streamed down Nikki’s face as she stared at him, her body simultaneously shivering and numb. “Thomas,” she said shakily. “I’m so sorry.”
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them, he turned around, giving her his back again. His head drooped down. “So that’s who Amy is, Doc. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before, but it’s hard for me to talk about my daughter.”
Nikki had never felt lower in her life. Worse yet, she didn’t know what to do, didn’t know what to say, to atone for actions that had been born of what she now understood to be the worst possible kind of jealousy. Thomas looked so broken. So defeated and empty. And it was all because she’d more or less pressed him to relive the memories he’d tried so hard to forget.
“Thomas,” she whispered, her voice catching. She slowly walked toward him and laid one shaking palm on his back. “I . . .”
Nikki’s face scrunched up, the pain she felt for him and Amy tearing at her insides and making her weep. “I’m such a jerk,” she gasped, burying her face into his back. “I am so incredibly sorry for taking you through that.”
His body tensed. “It’s okay, Doc. I wanted you to know.”
Thomas slowly turned around and drew Nikki’s crying form into his arms. He sighed as he held her, resting his chin on top of her head while she clung to him and quietly sobbed. “I hope now you understand why I don’t have it in me to let you walk out that door,” he murmured.
She nodded as she cried, too emotional to speak.
“I care about you very much, Nikki. I don’t want to lose you when I’ve finally found you,” he whispered.
Nikki’s head rose from his chest. Her eyes were red and puffy, her face tear-streaked as she searched his gaze. “I care about you, too,” she admitted, her voice still shaky. “That’s why I wanted to leave.”
He frowned, releasing her so he could use the pads of his thumbs to wipe at her tears. “Leaving me’s a funny way to show it,” he grumbled.
She half laughed and half groaned. Her eyes gentled as she looked at him. “I deserve for you to hate me.”
He searched her face. “Nah, I could never hate you,” he murmured. He took a deep breath and blew it out as his gaze shot up and absently raked the ceiling. “You and I have got some things we need to discuss, Doc.”
She realized he wanted to back away from the subject of Amy as much as possible, which she could hardly blame him for. The moment, and his memories, had become too emotionally raw. “Such as?”
“Such as the fact that you can’t leave.”
She glanced away. “I know that now,” she acknowledged. “I won’t ask again.”
Silence.
“Detective O’Rourke found a blood-stained shirt at my partner’s house,” Thomas finally said.
Nikki stilled. She briefly closed her eyes, sighing. “That was what the phone call was about yesterday? The one that led to your drinking binge?”
He nodded, his gaze finding hers. “It belonged to my daughter,” he quietly admitted.
She blew out a breath, feeling as though she might be sick. Pushing away from Thomas, she ran a hand through her hair. “I’m against the death penalty, you know. But in this instance I could flip the switch without remorse,” she gritted out. “Remorse?” She snorted. “Who am I kidding? Hell, I’d probably enjoy it. Pretty sick, huh?”
Thomas sighed. “If it is, we’re both sickos.”
Nikki was quiet for a long moment, her expression mulling. When finally she looked up at him, her anger had been replaced by sorrow.
“I won’t ask you to tell me how you feel,” she whispered. “I can’t pretend to know what it is you are going through. Finding out your partner is responsible for Amy’s death would be as devastating as if I found out Kim was the one who’d tried to kill me.” She shook her head. “Just know I’m here if you feel like venting, okay?”
He stared at her. “Thank you,” he said softly.
She nodded. Her forehead wrinkled when something occurred to her. “Wait a minute. If we know who Lucifer is, why are we staying here in Cincinnati?”
Thomas frowned as he turned to stroll into the kitchen. “Because he’s on the loose. We know who did it, but James—Lucifer—hasn’t been apprehended yet.”
Nikki followed him with her gaze. “You making something to eat?”
“Yeah,” he called out. “Truthfully my appetite is nil, but my stomach is growling something fierce. Figured I’d better eat so I don’t get sick.”
“I’ll take whatever it is you’re making, too,” she said absently, her gaze going toward the living room table where the laptop sat. “I’m going to sign on and see if our ad posted yet.”
“Let me know if it did.”
“Will do.”
Kim sat at the kitchen table as she watched Megan
chop up salad greens for dinner. Her stepmother had a flushed look about her, indicating she’d been in the sun a bit too long today. It seems she was taking target practice in the side yard very seriously. And, Kim begrudgingly conceded, she was getting good at it, too.
“Megan?”
“Yes, dear?”
Kim sighed, her hand running through her long, blonde hair. She stood up and pushed away from the table, gaining Megan’s full, wide-eyed attention. “I just wanted to say . . .”
Her stepmother seemed to swallow quickly. “Yes?”
“I . . .” Kim frowned. She wasn’t quite ready to let bygones be bygones, but she realized that carrying on in the childish way she had been wasn’t getting them anywhere, either. “You, uh, you make great salad,” she grumbled.
Her stepmother’s face seemed to fall a bit. “Oh.” Megan cleared her throat. “Well, thank you, dear.” She turned back to the counter and continued chopping up vegetables.
Kim briefly closed her eyes, then opened them to focus at her stepmother’s back. “I love you, too,” she softly admitted. “But we’ve got a lot of water under the bridge between us.” Megan’s back tensed, but she didn’t look up from her work. “Let’s give our relationship some time and see where we go from here. Okay?”
Her stepmother slowly turned her head to study her face. Tears that didn’t fall were gathered in her eyes. “I—I’d like that,” she said shakily.
Kim nodded. “Me, too.” Afraid she might cry, and determined not to, she took a deep breath and wobbled out of the room, leaving Megan to stare after her.
It took five minutes to ascertain that the ad had been
posted at
Dom4me.com
. It took only another minute to realize that the fictional female CEO Nikki and Thomas had created together had yet to receive any responses from would-be suitors.
“The ad could have been live for only ten minutes for all we know,” Nikki assured Thomas as he plopped down beside her on the living room floor and handed her a plate with a hotdog and chips on it. “I know it’s difficult, but we need to be patient.”
“Difficult is a good word,” he muttered. “There is also exasperating, irritating, frustrating, and
pissing-me-off
.” He frowned. “I just hope he takes the damn bait.”
Nikki gave that some thought as she bit down into the hotdog. “He will,” she said from around a mouthful of meat and bun. She snuggled in closer to Thomas, laying her head against his chest when he wrapped a solid, muscled arm around her. “He will.”
Ten minutes later, both of their heads shot up when the computer announced that they had an email.
Chapter 23
Thursday, July 24 11:31 P·M·
Seated next to Thomas in the Ford Taurus, Nikki sat in
silence as they steadily made their way back to Cleveland. It was over. The nightmare had ended. For her. She knew it was just the beginning, however, for the man seated beside her.
No faster had the computer announced an incoming email than a call had come in from Detective Ben O’Rourke announcing that James had been found and that the police were preparing to storm his motel room as they spoke. Sadly, Detective James Merdino had been apprehended while sending an email, leaving no doubts in anyone’s mind but that he was the one who had responded to the fake CEO’s ad. Nobody could verify that, and it was doubtful anyone ever would. Lucifer was a computer expert well-versed in rerouting emails to dummy servers. Still, James’s laptop had been confiscated and Leon Walker was busily sifting through it for evidence.
It didn’t matter. Not any longer. Everyone knew the truth.
There were so many things Nikki wanted to say to Thomas, but she realized there were no words to help what he was currently going through. What a bittersweet night for him, she decided. After all these years, he’d finally found his daughter’s killer, but at what price? Only to learn that the one man he trusted more than any other, his own partner and best friend, was her murderer. She couldn’t begin to imagine how painful that must feel.
Oddly enough, she’d given little thought so far to what this new development meant to her own situation from a personal standpoint. Richard—James—was captured. Life could return to normal. She was grateful it was so, but wished normalcy could have been handed back to her without Thomas getting hurt in the process.
Nikki’s head turned. Her gaze lingered at his haggard profile, noting the sternness of his features. The rigidity of his jaw, the stark gaze that was somehow faraway yet intense at the same time.
“Are you okay?” she whispered.
He didn’t answer for a long moment. “I’ve been better,” he finally drawled.
“I bet.”
Thomas sighed, his eyes never straying from the road. “Look, Doc . . .”
Nikki quirked an eyebrow, but said nothing.
“I know you mean well and all, but—”
“But you need to go through this alone.” She sighed, glancing forward to absently stare out the windshield. “I won’t pretend to know how you must be feeling, but needing to come to terms with it alone . . . well, that I can understand all too well,” she murmured.
His callused hand found her knee and gently squeezed. “Thanks, Nikki,” he muttered. “You’re a special lady.”
Nikki cocked her head enough to smile at him. “You’re welcome.”
Turning away, she snuggled up as best she could against the passenger side window and attempted to fall asleep. When slumber finally came, it only lasted in short ten-minute spurts here and there. Nikki couldn’t say why, but an ominous feeling had settled in her belly, a feeling that told her the situation was about to get a whole lot worse.
Surely one of the first things Thomas would do upon their return would be confront his partner. She could only imagine what would happen from there.
“Hello? Hellooooo?”
Priscilla Harrington-Barnsworth frowned as she impatiently waited for the caller to say something—anything. This was the third phone call she’d received in the past few days during which the aggravating person on the other end of the line said nothing. All three times she’d attempted to trace the call. All three times her secretary had come up with nothing.
She hated to admit it, but something about this situation didn’t settle well with her. None of her personal phone lines were supposed to be traceable, and all the other lines were answered by assistants. Had one of her online men managed to track her down against all odds? Did one of them, Claude perhaps, realize who she was?
No—definitely not. It wasn’t possible, she assured herself, biting down on her lower lip. She’d been so careful. Discretion should have been her middle name. Priscilla Discretion Harrington-Barnsworth. It was certainly more attractive than her true legal one: Matilda.
“Hello?” Cilla gritted out, now angry. The call seemed to be coming from somewhere heavily populated. A bar perhaps? “Look,” Cilla huffed, “either state what it is you want or quit calling. I hold little patience for wimps.”
“Priscilla,” a male voice breathed into the phone. Apparently the cutting remark had gotten her somewhere. “You sound as sexy as I knew you would.”
Her eyes widened. Oh damn. Not just any man would speak to her in that fashion.
“Who are you?” she asked weakly.
He chuckled. “The love of your life, darling. Surely you must know that.”
Fuck.
“I can’t imagine who you are,” she lied, her heartbeat thumping like mad. “Don’t ever call this number again.”
Her hands shaking, Cilla turned off her cell phone and held it against her chest. The caller ID had shown UNKNOWN, meaning she couldn’t readily ascertain what number Claude had dialed from. Whenever UNKNOWN popped up on her cell phone, she always assumed the call came from Otis or her father—the two people in her life who made a habit of keeping themselves untraceable. Such was the only reason she’d taken the damn call to begin with.
Cilla didn’t move for what felt like an hour, her feet and hazel gaze rooted to the same spot, as her entire future, or lack of it, flashed before her eyes. The election was in a little over three months.
Damn. Damn. Damn.
She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, feeling as though she might be sick. She had to find this man, she thought desperately. She had to find him and either pay him off or . . . or something. Anything—she’d do anything to keep him quiet.
“What the hell’s got you looking like that, Cilla?”
Her head shot up at the sound of her father’s aging but still authoritative voice. “Oh, Daddy,” she cried, her voice catching, “Daddy, help me.”