Holly winced, tears beginning to rim her eyes. “I already knew him. I ran into him last night.”
“So you decided, hey, why don’t I go shack up with him for the night? Forget my baby and my sister who wasn’t prepared for an overnight visit!”
More tears glistened in Holly’s eyes as she looked at Deuce. When she brought her eyes back to Juliet, she said, “Can we talk about this later? She’s calm now. Let her nurse in peace.”
Juliet forced herself to calm down. Turning her back on her sister, she decided to get on with her day. “I have to feed Robbie.”
As Juliet fed Robbie in his high chair, Holly nursed quietly, clearly brooding, and the guy—Deuce whatever—didn’t say
a word. Finally, after twenty minutes, Holly put herself back together and burped her baby.
Deuce watched with a look that Juliet couldn’t place. It was more than simple interest. Almost a longing.
Suddenly it hit her. Was he the father?
Even if he was, that still didn’t explain Holly’s irresponsibility.
Finally, Holly got the diaper bag and swaddled Lily in a blanket. “Well, okay, we’ll go now. Thank you for keeping her last night. I’ll try to call you later.”
Juliet couldn’t think of a thing to say. As she fed Robbie bananas, she watched Holly head for the door, with Deuce right behind her.
Something wasn’t right. She listened for the closing door, then went and locked it behind them. She looked through the curtains as Holly strapped Lily’s seat in the backseat of her taxi. Then Deuce sat in the back with the baby, and Holly got behind the wheel.
Why would Holly trust that man with her child? It didn’t make sense, even if he did turn out to be the father. With a sinking feeling and smothering discouragement, Juliet went back to the kitchen.
“So she’s at it again,” Cathy muttered.
“We can’t control her,” Juliet said. “We never could.”
H
olly watched Creed in the rearview mirror as they drove back to the motor home. He couldn’t keep his eyes off Lily. Though he kept the gun pointed at Holly’s back with his right hand, he had given his left hand to Lily. She had his calloused finger clutched in her tiny fist.
Holly seethed. The last thing she needed was this man getting into her daughter’s heart.
When they were almost back to the campground, she glanced back. “Creed, what do you want me to do now?”
“Leave your car here, and we’ll walk the rest of the way to the camper. Then we’ll move it. Maybe out of town.”
“Out of town? No! I can’t go out of town.”
“Not that far. Just somewhere they won’t look for me.”
Holly was sick of this. “Why can’t you go alone? What do you need us for?”
“I can’t let you go and talk to the police.”
“But I won’t know where you are. I can’t even lead them to you.”
“You’ll know I’m in a motor home.”
“But so did Brittany. You didn’t kidnap
her
.”
“Brittany won’t tell.”
Holly pulled her car to a stop and shoved the gearshift into park. “How do you know?”
“Because she knows I couldn’t kill anybody.”
Holly turned and looked at him over the seat. “Is she your girlfriend?”
“No.”
He got out of the car and unhooked the car seat. He’d clearly done it before, probably when his nephew was small.
He kept his gun in his pocket and carried Lily in her seat back to the motor home.
When they got inside, Holly bent to get the baby out of her seat, but he prodded her with the barrel of the gun again. “Drive first,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”
She had no choice, so she strapped Lily’s seat onto one of the back bench seats, then climbed into the driver’s seat. Lily slept as they rode north out of Southport.
“So we’re almost to Pensacola,” she said. “Isn’t this far enough?”
“Probably.” Creed stared down at his phone’s GPS. “Take a left, go two miles, then a right into the Baymont RV park.”
If she did as he said, would Creed let her walk away with Lily? How had she gotten into this?
She shouldn’t have kept any of this from her sisters. If she hadn’t, if she’d told them she was looking for Creed—the father of her child who was wanted for murder—then they would have known last night that something had happened to her.
In fact, why hadn’t she told Creed last night that her sisters knew where she was and what she was doing? Even though it wasn’t true, it might have frightened him into letting her go.
At the RV park, Creed made her go into the office and use her ID and cash to pay and sign in. She thought of telling the desk clerk that she and her baby were being held against their will, but what if that resulted in police surrounding them? Creed was out there with Lily. She couldn’t risk putting her in even more danger.
Without alerting anyone, she went back to the motor home.
“Everything all right?” Creed asked her.
“Yeah,” she said. “We’re in space twenty-seven.” She checked on Lily, slipped back into the driver’s seat, and pulled into the space assigned to them.
Creed unlatched Lily’s safety strap.
“Please don’t get her out,” Holly said. “She’s sleeping.”
He didn’t listen—just put the gun in his pocket and lifted the sleeping child. Lily woke and stretched, arching her back, her little hands over her head. He smiled and brought her to his chest. “She’s beautiful. She looks like you. My nose, maybe. She looks a lot like my nephew when he was a baby.”
Holly couldn’t breathe. Her maternal senses were on full alert. “I really wish you’d put her back down.”
He shot her a sharp look. “She’s my baby too, Holly.”
“Why?” she demanded. “Because you picked up a girl in a bar? That doesn’t make you a father, Creed.”
“It made you a mother.”
“I carried her for nine months. She came out of my body. I’m the one who loves her and takes care of her.” She watched as he swayed back and forth, rocking her. His fatherly gentleness made her angry. “What do you want from me, Creed?”
He looked at her. “Nothing. I’m only holding you so you can’t run to the police and tell them where I am.”
“No, I mean what do you want . . . regarding Lily?”
He looked down at Lily again. Holly waited, but before he could get a word out, his face crumpled and his eyes filled with tears. This time he couldn’t hold them back. “I don’t know,” he said just above a whisper. “But I don’t take fatherhood lightly.”
“Why not? Everybody else does! Doesn’t everybody assume that one-night stands aren’t supposed to turn into lifelong commitments? If you wind up in prison, do you want your daughter to grow up knowing her daddy’s serving a life sentence for murder one?”
“I didn’t do it,” he bit out.
“Maybe not, but you can’t possibly think that what you’re doing now is making things better. Making you look innocent.”
Lily’s little head rolled to the side, and his hand came up to support it. He kissed the top of her head. “No, you’re right. You probably did the right thing keeping me out of her life, especially since I’m in this mess.” His voice broke. “But I would have been a fantastic dad.”
She didn’t know what to say. She looked away, sure he must be embarrassed by his tears. She tried to think. He didn’t seem like a cold-blooded killer, someone who could shoot a guy execution-style in the back of the head. But even so, where did that leave her?
She had to get the gun away from him. She had to do what she could for herself and her child. Forcing herself to stay calm, she sat down next to him on the bench seat, within reach of the jacket pocket where he held her gun.
He held Lily in front of him, smiling as the baby looked up at him.
Now!
In one quick move, Holly slipped her hand into his jacket and jerked the gun out.
“No!” he shouted, startling the baby.
Holly backed across the motor home, pointing the gun at the floor, unable and unwilling to aim it at him and her baby. Lily began to cry.
“Holly, give the gun back,” he said as he brought Lily to his chest.
“I can’t, Creed.” Her hands were shaking. “I have to protect my child.”
“Then don’t aim a gun at her!”
“I’m not! Put Lily down now!” He made no move to do as she said.
The gun felt lighter than it should. She glanced down at it. It was her gun—the one he’d taken from her cab. She released the clip. It was empty.
Her mouth fell open. “It’s not loaded?”
Creed just let out a long, weary sigh.
“Are you seriously telling me you’ve been holding me hostage all night long, and you didn’t even have a loaded gun?”
“I took the bullets out. I didn’t want it to accidentally go off.”
She dropped the gun on the couch. “Give me my baby!” she shouted.
“No.”
“Give her to me now!” She took Lily out of his arms, and the baby hushed. She backed away from him and sank into the front passenger seat, opened the glove compartment, and took out her phone and battery. She popped the battery back in, watched as it came to life and found a signal.
“Holly, don’t call anyone. So help me . . .”
“What?” she asked, turning back to him. “You’ll kill me? What will you do? Hit me over the head with the gun? Where are the bullets?”
He sighed. “They’re in the console by the driver’s seat.”
She opened it, found six bullets, and put them into her pocket. “Unbelievable.”
“I’m not a killer. I took them out when we were still in the cab. I just needed the threat.”
She stalked across the trailer to the infant seat. “I’m leaving.”
“Holly, I need your help. Please. I can help you too. You and your family.”
She couldn’t believe his gall. “What do you mean? With Lily?”
“No. I mean I know things. Things that can help you find your family’s archenemy.”
Her family’s archenemy? Her mind began to race. There was only one. She stared at Creed for a long moment.
“I can help you find him. He was there when Loco was killed. I know people who can lead us to him.”
Her heart stumbled. “Are we talking about . . . who I think we’re talking about?”
“Yes,” he said. “I can help you find Leonard Miller.”
P
ushing through her exhaustion, Juliet dropped Zach and Abe off at church. As she drove home with Robbie, who still seemed slightly feverish, she drove past the office and saw that Cathy’s car was there. She pulled in next to one of the old gas pumps, got Robbie out, and went in.
“What are you doing?” she asked Cathy, who sat behind Michael’s desk.
“I wanted to use Michael’s computer to look up that guy Deuce. Why didn’t we get his last name?” Cathy asked.
“His last name? We didn’t even get his
first
name. Deuce is probably a nickname.” Juliet laid Robbie in the Pack ’n Play she and Holly kept there. He didn’t protest, just curled up with his blankie.
“We’re PIs,” Cathy said. “We can find him. I’ll do a search of the name Deuce in police records in Florida.” She hit Send, then waited.
Juliet came around behind her to watch the screen. “Oh no,” she said as names began to scroll up.
“Way more than I thought,” Cathy said. “Seems to be a popular street name.” There were at least a hundred people listed.
“Can you scroll through their mug shots?”
“I’ll have to click on each one, but yeah, I’ll do it. But if this guy doesn’t have a rap sheet, we’re barking up the wrong tree.” She clicked through a few who weren’t the guy, deleted them.
“Okay, I have an idea,” Juliet said. “I’ll call Holly’s friends who were at the shower. She probably partied with them last night. They would know who he is.” She paced in the other room as she called two of them. She had clearly awakened them. Neither admitted Holly had been with them last night, and both denied knowing anyone named Deuce, but they were gleefully intrigued by Holly’s activities.
When Juliet got off the phone, she went back to Cathy and dropped into a chair. “Why are we doing this? It’s a waste of time.”
“Because we want to know who Holly is tangled up with.”
“She’s a grown woman. She can see anyone she wants. We can’t stop her.”
“But if we find out anything suspicious about him, at least we can tell her. Try to make her see reason. She’s letting him be around Lily.”
Juliet let out a hard sigh. “Cathy, do you think he could be the father?”
Cathy looked up at her, surprised. “No. I mean . . . what would make you think that?”
“He came with her to get Lily. That’s kind of weird, don’t you think? I mean, she’s out all night with him, then introduces
him to her child? Most women would want to pretend they’re free and unencumbered. Most guys would run from a new mom with a baby.”
“Yeah, it’s weird, but—”
“Don’t you think it’s at least possible? The way he looked at Lily. He didn’t just glance at her. He was very interested. He got this soft look on his face.”
Cathy stopped clicking and stared at Juliet. “Well,
someone
is the father. I don’t know why she refuses to tell us who. I always thought it was because . . .”
“Because she doesn’t know?” Juliet saw from Cathy’s eyes that she’d nailed it. “I don’t think that’s it. Holly was wild and reckless, but I don’t think she would go through men like that. It would make her feel worthless.”
“She did feel worthless,” Cathy said. “Still does to some extent.”
“But lately, she’s had better judgment. Maybe we’ve got this all wrong.”
“Okay, then what’s going on? She stayed out all night with some guy we’ve never heard of.” Cathy sighed as she read through the profiles coming up on the screen. “The first twenty or so aren’t him. Still looking. I think I’ll recognize him.”
At least Lily was with her mom now. That was something. Juliet wished she hadn’t invited Holly’s old friends to the shower. Maybe they had been too much of a temptation. The whole single mom thing was overwhelming enough. “I should’ve helped her more,” Juliet mumbled.
Cathy gaped at her. “Seriously? Juliet, in your tangled mind, how can this possibly be your fault?”
“I’m just thinking the pressure was so great. Maybe she—”
“Juliet!” Cathy turned away from the computer and faced
her sister. “Listen to yourself. You’re grieving your husband, you’ve adopted his mistress’s son, you’ve had to start earning a living, you’re raising two boys alone, you’ve moved . . . Yes, Holly’s had some struggles, but you get the trophy for tough times. And it hasn’t sent
you
off the deep end.”