Taken (8 page)

Authors: Barbara Freethy

“Well,” Nick muttered, putting his hands on his hips as he surveyed the room.

“It’s a mess, I know. My family has the nasty habit of cleaning up by throwing everything into one room and shutting the door. The albums could be in any one of those boxes. This search could take all night.”

“We’d better get started then.”

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“Are you sure you don’t want me to work on it and let you know what I find? You must be tired after your trip home. You probably haven’t slept in days.”

“I’m more interested in finding Evan than sleeping,”

he told her, a glint of determination in his eyes. “That watch is the only clue I have right now.”

“It’s a pretty small clue.”

“Actually, we don’t know how small it is,” Nick corrected. “I know we’re not working on the same page, Kayla. When you think of Evan, you see the man you married. When I think of him, I see the man who destroyed a lot of lives in the six months that I knew him, including my sister’s. I know he’s dangerous. And I don’t think he’s done with us yet. That’s why he called you earlier. He wanted you and me to both know there’s more to come.”

She stared at Nick in growing alarm. She’d never considered Evan to be dangerous, but his voice on the phone earlier had sent a chill down her spine. There had been a wicked, nasty edge to his tone. She’d expected that if they ever spoke again, he’d say he was sorry about walking out on her, but he hadn’t sounded sorry; more like . . .

triumphant, as if he’d won something. She wanted to believe that her instincts about him had not been completely wrong, but how could she? He’d lied about his name, his home, his job — she had to accept the fact that she didn’t know him at all.

“Evan left me two weeks ago,” she said aloud. “He took what he wanted. He had the chance to take anything else. What more could he possibly want with me?”

Nick’s gaze was hard and unyielding. “That’s what we have to find out, before he catches us off guard once
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again. I believe that Evan is a sociopath. He has no conscience, no moral boundaries, no regrets.”

“But he was so charming,” she protested, still having a little trouble seeing Evan the way Nick saw him.

“Which is how he gains the trust of the people he wants to use.”

And she’d trusted him completely, given herself to him, gone off with him alone. He could have killed her.

Maybe she was lucky he’d just left. But . . . the other side of her brain wanted to know why she was so willing to believe this man — this Nick Granville. She’d known him for only a few hours. And while his story made sense, did she really have all the facts? Here she was again, alone with a strange man whom she’d freely invited into her home, into her attic, into a place where no one would find her for days . . . if something were to happen.

Her gaze shot toward the door. She had the urge to run as far away from him as possible.

“Don’t,” Nick said abruptly. “Don’t go.”

“You’re scaring me.” Saying it out loud made her feel marginally better. Grabbing a nearby tennis racket off a pile of sports equipment made her feel even more in control.

Nick’s eyes narrowed. “You’re scared of me?”

“I don’t know you any better than I knew Evan. You could be lying, too.”

“I thought we’d gotten past that, Kayla.”

“You reminded me that I made a terrible mistake when I trusted Evan. Why should I trust you?”

“Because you know Evan was in my house. You know he pretended to be me. You know he’s the bad guy.” Nick paused, blowing out a frustrated breath. “Look, I’m
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sorry if you’re scared. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m also not going to back down. I want to find a photo of that watch. And unless you plan to hit me over the head with that racket, I’m going to start searching the boxes now.”

Her fingers tightened around the handle of the racket.

She felt torn between logic and her imagination, which was running amok in the shadowy, eerie light of the attic.

“I could hit you if I need to,” she said. “Just so you know.

I can protect myself.”

“Good, but I’m really not the one you need to be worried about. Now why don’t you start on that side of the room, and I’ll start here. Hopefully one of us will come up with a photo of that watch.”

Kayla took the racket with her, keeping it nearby as she began to look for the photo albums. They worked in silence for a while. Nick made faster work of the boxes than she did. She kept getting caught up in old memories, the costumes she’d played dress-up in, the ceramic vase she’d made in art class. Then there was the scrapbook of plane tickets. “I forgot about this,” she muttered, pulling it out to take a closer look.

Nick came over to her side. “Did you find a picture of the watch?”

“No, just an old album I made a long time ago.”

His brow furrowed as he stared down at her page of ticket receipts. “You must have done a lot of traveling.”

“Every other weekend for three years. I always went to the same place, San Diego. That’s where my father moved after my parents divorced when I was ten years old. They shared custody of me, so I went back and forth, and then it stopped,” she said with a sigh.

“Why?”

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“My dad remarried, had a baby with his second wife.

He thought it would be easier if I just came in the summer, and then eventually it seemed easier if I didn’t come at all.” She’d been so hurt at the time. She’d kept the plane tickets, thinking that one day she’d throw them in her father’s face, and tell him how horrible it had been, and that he would actually care. But she’d grown up and realized that he’d never care the way she wanted him to.

She tossed the tickets back into the box. “Are your parents still together?”

“No. They divorced when I was thirteen. My father had an affair. Unfortunately, when he moved out he didn’t go far, just a few blocks away to his girlfriend’s apartment. I would have preferred he’d gone to the other side of the world. I wanted nothing more to do with him, but my sisters had a soft spot for him. They used to cry when he didn’t show up, which was a lot.” His mouth twisted into an angry grimace, and Kayla caught a glimpse of pain in his eyes, but before she could comment he looked away. “Let’s get back to work,” he said gruffly. “Stay focused.”

“Okay, I’m on it.” She opened another box. It was filled with odds and ends that she vaguely remembered being in her grandmother’s curio closet; old teacups, ash-trays, and vases, nothing of any value.

Nick opened the box next to hers. A moment later, he let out a low whistle. “I think I found something, Kayla.”

He pulled out two old albums. “Somebody’s baby pictures.”

He sat down on the floor, leaning against the wall with his legs stretched out in front of him. She scooted over next to him to take a look. “That’s my mother,” she said.

“And my grandparents. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen this
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album.” They flipped through the pages together. Most of the pictures were of her mother and her grandmother. Her grandfather had probably been the one taking the photos.

“No watch,” Nick said, closing the book.

She picked up the second album and leafed through the yellowed pages. “This must have been my grandmother’s album before she married Grandpa.” The photos were all black-and-white and showed her grandmother at various key moments in her life: first day of school, first Communion, cheerleading, going to the prom. Charlotte always had a sparkle in her eyes, even back then. “She looks so young,” she said. “So full of life.”

“She looked full of life to me tonight,” Nick commented.

That was certainly true, Kayla thought with a frown.

Not that she didn’t want her grandmother to be happy, but poker, bourbon, cigarettes? Was she having some sort of midlife crisis a few years late?

“Hey, what’s this?” Nick took a brown envelope from the back of the scrapbook. He pulled out several newspaper clippings, a couple of playbills, and an eight-by-ten photo of her grandmother in a fifties-style dance costume, short skirt, high heels, black mesh stockings.

“Good heavens. Is that Grandma?” she asked, snatch-ing the photo from him. The sexy woman in the skimpy outfit did not look like the woman she knew.

“She was a dancer,” Nick said, opening one of the theater programs. “She’s listed in the chorus.”

“I can’t believe it. Give me that.” She was convinced he was wrong until she saw her grandmother’s maiden name in black and white — Charlotte Cunningham. “She never told me she danced onstage. She said she was a secretary.”

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“Maybe a topless one,” he suggested, handing her an ad from a newspaper highlighting the opening of a new strip club on Broadway featuring “Sweet Charlie” and

“Dazzling Dana.”

Kayla swallowed hard. She couldn’t believe it. Her grandmother had been a stripper? She felt her stomach turn over. Was no one who they appeared to be? Did everyone have a secret life? “This is crazy and shocking,”

she muttered. “Why didn’t she tell me?”

“Maybe she thought you’d be horrified,” he said pointedly.

“Well, it is kind of horrifying, isn’t it?”

“It was a long time ago.”

“She’s always lived such a respectable life. My grandfather was a banker. They went to church every Sunday.

They were conservative. I just don’t understand how she could go from stripping to that life.” She paused. “I wonder if Grandpa knew about her past.”

“Maybe he liked the fact that she had something to show off, you know?” Nick suggested.

Kayla’s jaw dropped. “I can’t believe you just said that. She’s my grandmother, for God’s sake.”

Nick smiled. “She stripped, big deal. She didn’t kill anyone. And she was a young, single woman at the time.”

“I don’t think she’d like it if I were doing the same thing now.” Kayla saw Nick’s gaze drop to her chest and linger there. She instinctively crossed her arms, knowing she was not nearly as well-endowed as her grandmother.

“Hey,” she protested.

“Sorry, male reflex,” he said with an unapologetic laugh.

“Yeah, well, as you said a few minutes ago, stay focused.” As she stuffed the clippings back into the enve-TA K E N

lope, she saw something they’d missed. It was a black-and-white eight-by-ten photo, and in it her grandmother stood next to a tall, dark-haired man with a mustache. He had his arm around Charlotte, and she was smiling up at him with complete adoration. She looked like a young woman in love.

A glint of silver caught Kayla’s eye. Her heart stopped.

There, hanging out of the man’s coat pocket, was a chain and a watch, a pocket watch — her grandfather’s watch, the same watch she’d given Evan. She couldn’t believe her eyes. There had to be some mistake.

“Kayla? Did you find something?”

Swallowing hard, she turned the photo around so he could see it.

“Is that the watch?” Nick asked.

“Yes, but the man wearing it is not my grandfather.

I’ve never seen him before. They look like they’re . . .

friends.”

“Or more than that,” Nick said, as he gazed into her eyes. “I knew your grandmother was hiding something.

Maybe this man is the reason she didn’t want to talk about the watch.”

“Maybe,” Kayla conceded.

“Do you mind if I take that photo home with me? I’d like to look at it under a magnifying glass.”

“I guess,” she said, a little reluctant to let it out of her sight. “I still don’t know what Evan would want with a fifty-year-old watch, even if it did belong to someone other than my grandfather. It can’t be worth that much.

Can it?”

“I don’t know yet.” Nick tapped the photo in his hand.

“I think this guy is important.”

She gave a reluctant nod of agreement. Maybe her
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grandmother was right. Maybe nothing good ever came from looking back. It was too late now; they’d already opened the door to the past. And a stranger had walked through it. Who was he? She had to find out.

Charlotte Hirsch opened the door Saturday morning and offered Kayla a resigned smile. “I had a feeling you would be back.”

“We need to talk, Grandma.” As she entered her grandmother’s condo, Kayla saw no evidence of the poker game from the night before. The living and dining rooms were spotless. Charlotte was dressed in a pair of conservative black slacks and a navy-blue sweater. She looked like a grandma, not a chorus girl or a stripper. If Kayla hadn’t spent most of the night going through the theater programs and scrapbooks, she might have been able to convince herself it was all a mistake. But there was too much hard evidence.

“I found an old photo album last night in the attic, starring you,” she said as she took a seat on the red leather couch in her grandmother’s living room. It occurred to her that red leather was not something her grandfather would ever have chosen. Her grandmother had changed since he’d died. Or maybe she’d just gone back to the person she’d once been.

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“Oh, dear, I think I know where this is going,” Charlotte said. “Do you want some tea?”

“No, I don’t want tea; I want answers. No stalling, Grandma, and no kicking me out like you did last night.”

“I had company.”

“That’s not the reason you wanted to get rid of me.”

Kayla patted the seat next to her. “Sit.”

Charlotte sat, folding her hands in her lap, her expression both wary and annoyed. “What on earth were you doing in the attic?”

“Looking for photos of the watch.”

“Why would you need a picture? You know what it looked like.”

“Nick wanted to see one. He wants to trace the watch.

He thinks it will lead us to Evan.”

“I told you to let that go.”