Within Striking Distance (15 page)

The knocking started again. Becky yawned, rolled to her feet and padded to the door.

Jake’s voice came through before she reached it. “Becky! Are you all right?”

She blinked. The urgency in his tone brought her fully awake. “Yes, I’m fine.”

“We need to talk. Can I come in?”

“Sure,” she said. She straightened her blouse, glanced down to make sure her jeans were fastened and opened the door.

As soon as he crossed the threshold of her apartment, he grasped her arm and gave her a head-to-toe inspection. When he was done, he scowled and turned to lock and chain the door behind him. “Sorry to barge in on you like this but you weren’t answering your phone and I got worried.”

“I didn’t hear it,” she said, leading the way to the living room. “When did you call?”

“I’ve been trying to get you for hours.”

“That’s funny. I didn’t hear…” Her words trailed off as she looked at the answering machine on the hall table. The red light was off. She checked the phone, then smiled weakly. “Sorry. I turned the ringer off in the afternoon. I was trying to get some sleep before my friends came over. It wasn’t any use, though. I was too jumpy.”

“You had company? They should have let you rest.”

“I just told you, I was too restless to sleep. Besides, they’re my friends. They knew exactly what I needed, which doesn’t include being babied.”

He rubbed his face. “Don’t be annoyed with me, Becky. I was concerned.”

“I’m not annoyed, Jake, but honestly, you didn’t need to be concerned. I might not have had combat training like you have, but I’m not made of spun glass.”

At the mention of glass, he took her hand so he could look at her bandage. “How’s the cut feeling? Any soreness?”

It was a good thing he didn’t know about her bruises, she thought. She realized she should be grateful that he was sensitive enough to worry. She’d just been singing his praises to Tara and Nicole. He was a good man. Why did she feel like grinding her teeth? “It’s fine. I barely feel it.”

He looked at her face, as if checking to see whether or not she was telling the truth.

She sighed. “Jake, you’re not still feeling responsible because I was hurt, are you? It wasn’t your fault. It was mine for getting in the way.”

His forehead furrowed. “Sorry, Becky. I can’t help it.”

“It’s okay. I suspect this protectiveness thing you’ve got going is hardwired into you.”

“You sound disappointed.”

“Well, I was hoping there was some other reason you might have come over to see me.”

Without another word, he caught her chin in his hand, tipped up her face and kissed her.

Becky’s heart skipped, then settled into a heavy throb. Pleasure, pure and simple, washed over her so quickly her knees went weak. She closed her eyes and splayed her fingers on Jake’s chest.

It was remarkable how Jake’s kisses always felt different. Sometimes they were gentle or playful, other times they were delicious enough to curl her toes. This one was hard to describe. She could feel the fine edge of exhaustion humming through his body, yet there was power in his embrace. The familiar sense of belonging, of home, wrapped around her senses.

This was what she’d needed more than a nap or margaritas. No matter what was happening around them, she always felt better with Jake. She smiled against his mouth, then rested her forehead in the crook of his neck. His scent, the familiar mix of cloves and male skin, surrounded her like an extension of their kiss. “That’s better.”

He stroked her hair. “I guess I should have done that right away.”

“It would have been nice.”

“There’s that word again.”

She laughed softly. “It’s because I have trouble finding the right words for you. You’re a very complex man, Jake.”

“Me? No way. What you see is what you get.”

She lifted her head and leaned back so that she could focus on his face. His jaw was darkened with end-of-the-day beard stubble. Although his gaze sparkled with warmth, the skin around his eyes looked taut with weariness. Every one of his forty-eight years showed tonight. That wasn’t a bad thing. His age made him look solid and reliable, a man who knew what he wanted and would take all the time he needed to get it. Becky felt a quiver of awareness at the thought.

Oh, yes, she did like what she saw. She smiled and touched his dimple. “Can I get you something? Tea? Some juice? I don’t have any beer, but there should be some margarita fixings left.”

“No, thanks. I won’t stay that long.”

The pleasure from their kiss began to ebb. His voice had shifted to his professional tone, the one he’d often used when he’d still been working on her case. “Then you really did come over here just to check up on me.”

Instead of replying directly, he took her hand and led her toward the couch. “There’s a reason for that, Becky. That’s why I need to talk to you.”

She sat beside him and curled her feet onto the cushion. “Have they found the man who attacked you?”

“Not yet, but Len got a hit on his fingerprints. It’s a man by the name of Ralph Bocci. He’s an ex-con. Have you ever heard of him?”

“No. Why should I?”

“You never heard his name mentioned, maybe when you were still living with your father?”

“No, I’m certain I didn’t. I had never seen him before that afternoon outside your office. Why?” She pressed backward into the corner of the couch. “You don’t think my father put him up to what happened yesterday, do you?”

“I’m sorry, Becky, but I have to consider all the possibilities.”

“Well, that’s not one of them. My dad never would have asked someone to spy on you. That’s not like him. Just because he doesn’t approve of me looking for my birth parents doesn’t mean he’d do something criminal. Where would he have met someone like this Bocci person, anyway? My dad lives in Melbourne.”

“He might have known him in his youth.”

“What do you mean, ‘in his youth’? My father was never involved with people like that.”

Jake glanced away. “The police are still looking for Bocci. He was due to report to his parole officer today but he didn’t show up. He’s been living in Indianapolis since his release from the state prison ten months ago. His P.O. hadn’t known he’d left town.”

“Back up a minute. You didn’t answer my question. Why did you think my father knew Bocci?”

“I was mixed up.”

“No, you weren’t. You’ve got a steel-trap memory. Jake, tell me the truth about my father.”

“I’m sorry. I should have guessed you wouldn’t have known. Floyd has an arrest record. The most serious was an assault charge arising from a bar fight. He was twenty-one at the time. He moved in some rough circles when he was young.”

Her first impulse was to deny it, but she couldn’t. What Jake had said had the ring of truth. Her father did have a short fuse, but a lot of people made mistakes in their youth that they regretted later. And as crimes went, a bar fight wasn’t that serious. What did it matter that her parents hadn’t told
her? She shouldn’t be surprised. They had both been good at keeping secrets from her. If she was Gina Grosso, then they had lied to her for her entire life. If she was Gina…

She drew up her knees and wrapped her arms around her legs, struck by an ugliness she hadn’t wanted to think about before.

“Becky, talk to me. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt your feelings.”

She’d been so focused on hoping that she might be Gina, and fantasizing about belonging to the Grosso family, that she had purposely avoided examining the issue of how she’d ended up with the Peters. “You must think I’m an idiot.”

“Becky, no.” He slid closer and reached out to touch her face but she tipped her head away. He dropped his arm to the back of the couch. “I think you’re a very courageous woman.”

“It must seem ridiculous for me to get indignant at the idea my father would know a criminal, because if I’m Gina Grosso, then he must be a kidnapper. My mother, too. It doesn’t seem possible that the people I knew were capable of that, but they must have been. They stole a baby from her family. That’s got to be one of the cruelest things anyone can do. They were criminals.”

“If they did steal you, they were desperate.”

“I never wanted to consider this. It felt disloyal so I just glossed over it in my mind. Of course my parents wouldn’t have wanted me to dig into my origins. What they must have done was despicable.”

“They wanted a child. Floyd’s arrest record might have kept them from adopting through legal channels.”

“So they might have solved that by stealing a newborn baby from the Nashville hospital nursery. My God, Jake. How did Patsy survive a blow like that? How did Dean? How could I even think of being happy about being Gina when it means there was all this suffering connected with my birth?”

“It was over thirty years ago, Becky. Dean and Patsy are strong people. They got past it. All they care about now is finding their child alive.”

She pressed her forehead against her knees. “They thought their baby was dead.”

“That’s what the police told them. It’s why Dean stopped looking.”

“It’s awful.”

“Yes, it was a bad time for them. That’s why I’m trying to be so careful about getting their hopes up now.”

“I’m sorry for giving you a hard time about that.”

“It’s understandable. I might be hardwired to be protective, but you seem to be hardwired to take chances.” He rested his fingers on her forearm. “You’re a caring and generous woman, Becky. I admire that. I don’t want to see you get hurt because you’ve put your faith in the wrong person.”

She looked up. “You’re talking about my father again.”

He nodded, his gaze on the bandage that circled her wrist. “I need to warn you to take precautions. There’s a possibility that other crimes could be involved. If Bocci and your adoptive father are working together—”

“No!” she said, cutting off his words. “There is no way my dad would be behind the break-in and the fire.”

“Yet you accept that he could have been behind the abduction of an infant?”

“No. Yes. That’s different. You said it yourself. He and my mom were desperate for a child. And they didn’t intend to harm me. They loved me.”

“He could be desperate to avoid charges now,” Jake said. “There’s no statute of limitations on kidnapping, and the U.S. has an extradition treaty with Australia.”

She uncoiled from the corner of the couch and leaned forward to grab Jake’s shoulders. “Would the Grossos pursue that?”

“They only want to find their daughter.”

“Thank God.”

“But Floyd wouldn’t know that. If you are Gina, then he has valid reasons to want this investigation stopped.”

She wanted to shake him, but he was too solid and barely moved. She stabbed a finger at his chest instead. “My father might have made mistakes, and he might have done something awful to the Grossos years ago, but I don’t believe he would do anything criminal now.”

“Becky…”

“What about the blogger? The person who put the story about Gina on the Internet? Whoever that is obviously knows about the kidnapping.”

“The blogger wouldn’t want to stop the truth from coming out after revealing the story in the first place.”

“Then what about the other women who claimed they were Gina?” she asked quickly. “Any one of them might have resented the way you ruled them out and could be trying to get even. Or maybe there’s someone else who hasn’t come forward yet. They wouldn’t want you to prove I’m Gina because that would ruin their chances. Did you think of that?”

“It’s possible.”

“So why are you fixated on blaming my father?”

“Becky, please, calm down.” He took her hand from his chest and squeezed it. “I’m not fixated on anyone. I’m only trying to protect you, but I can see that I’m making a mess of explaining myself. I haven’t even gotten to the main reason I came over.”

“There’s more?”

“You need to make sure you lock and chain your door whenever you’re in this apartment. I’ve asked Len to send a patrol car through the neighborhood at frequent intervals. You’d better keep your phones turned on, too,” he added,
getting to his feet. He went to the hall to switch her phone ringer back on, then returned to stand at the end of the couch. He made no move to sit. “And until this is over, I don’t want you going anywhere on your own. If you need to go out, let me know and I’ll go with you.”

She frowned. “Don’t you think that’s excessive?”

He regarded her in silence for a moment. His fingers tightened around the head of his cane. “Do you remember reading about the death of Alan Cargill?”

Becky nodded. Everyone around NASCAR had grieved when the patriarch of the Cargill team had been killed. “Tara told me about it. She was at the awards banquet when it happened.”

“I’ve spoken with the detective handling the case. We both think there’s a possibility it’s related to the abduction of the Grossos’ baby.”

She felt a chill. “How?”

“The killer might have wanted to silence him.”

“Oh, my God,” she whispered, rubbing her arms.