Daring to Love, page 8
The FBI found nothing on the paper—or envelope that’d been postmarked in New York City—except traces of powder from latex gloves. The seal and the stamp were the self-adhesive variety, so they didn’t anticipate any recovery of DNA evidence.
Liz went with her gut reaction. “There’s no proof. No lock of hair, no picture. It could be from anyone jumping on a gravy train.”
“True,” said Mike, “but we have to operate on the assumption it’s genuine and Kayla has been kidnapped.” He held up his hand to stop Liz as she started to speak. “As of ten minutes ago, control is in the hands of the Feds. We work for them in whatever capacity they decide, but until we’re called on, we’ll continue investigating the runaway angle.” He dismissed the group to get on with their next moves.
*
Liz was glad she’d chosen to start with the Garcia stable. She stepped inside the deserted barn anticipating a connection of some kind with Kayla since this had been a special place for her.
But the air remained still except for the dust dancing in the wedge of sunlight slanting through the open doorway.
Cobwebs draped from every beam and decorated the corners of stalls swept so clean years ago their mangers held not a single blade of hay. No oats sprouted in the spaces between floor planks. Liz shook her head in answer to Galen’s inquiring look. “Kayla hasn’t been here, and I was so sure this is where she’d have met with Juan.”
“They would have been trapped if Garcia showed up.”
“Hmm. True. Maybe outside then.”
They circled the paddocks and riding ring until Liz began to feel someone else’s sadness and followed the emotion to a stone marker behind the last pen. Dropping to her knees, she reached out and touched the lettering on the granite, read the words out loud. “Beth’s Pride, my very best friend.”
Galen’s hand was on her shoulder. She reached up to touch it and he captured her fingers. “Nice spot for him, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, and she loved him.”
Galen pulled her to her feet and drew her back against him, slid his arms around her waist, and they stared at the words together. With his mouth at her ear, he said softly, “You loved him, too.”
“He was all I had, all I could trust. I leaned on him. He helped me survive for years.” Childhood memories threatened to overwhelm her.
His lips teased the soft skin beneath her ear. “Now you’ve got me.”
She closed her eyes. Soaked up his warmth. Listened to the thumping of her heart. Wanted to let herself—
“Trust me, Liz.”
“I can’t,” she whispered.
“You won’t.”
“I don’t know how.”
“Then let’s try this for now.” He turned her in his arms and she met him halfway. His kiss was gentle, filled with kindness and compassion as though to ease her sad memories and nothing more. When it ended, she stared into his eyes, confused, uncertain, questioning the absence of passion.
Galen answered by sliding his hands down to her hips, snuggling her against the evidence. “Don’t ever doubt your power over me.”
She opened her mouth to speak but he captured it with his own, taking, giving, devouring her response. She didn’t care anymore where she was, who she was, or why. The only thing occupying her mind was the sound of her own heartbeat. Or was it his?
She suddenly needed to be closer, needed to be inside him, to be warm, to be held. Her hands sought his skin, and she heard him groan as he dragged his mouth from hers.
With his forehead resting against hers, he drew in a deep breath. She ran a fingertip across his bottom lip, then gazed up into his eyes. The passion, arousal, and stark desire stunned her, sparking an internal battle for control.
She reminded herself that this was who he was. All man. Sensual and controlling. He could push the buttons of any woman on the face of the earth. Lord, but could he push hers. One touch and her brain took a vacation. That had to stop.
He studied her expression. With a grimace, he dropped his hands and stepped away from her. Became all business. “Are we done with this area?”
“Yeah.” She cleared her throat to get rid of the embarrassing huskiness. “I’m getting nothing from Kayla out here.” She started toward the car.
As Liz walked away Galen thought, one of us isn’t getting any smarter and I’m not sure if it’s you or me darlin’.
*
Back at the hacienda, Liz stood her ground. “I need to go undercover, Mike.” She tossed Galen a look that said, Stay out of this.
“You are not, I repeat, not going to that stable alone,” said Mike.
She threw her hands in the air. “I can’t take Galen. A blind man could make him as a Fed from half a mile away, for crying out loud. Hell, a flippin’ giraffe in my back pocket would be less obvious.”
“Fine. Here’s the compromise: you take Celine and you wear a wire.” Not that actual wires were used anymore. She’d likely be wearing a tiny button housing both a camera and a microphone.
“Fine.” She echoed. “Now get me into Garcia’s house somehow. I need to borrow some of Kayla’s riding clothes to wear so I look like I belong.”
Galen spoke quietly, “I’ll get Foley to keep them in the living room while you and I go in through the kitchen entrance.”
“It’d be quicker if I did it alone.”
His jaw clamped shut. “Not going to happen. So get over it.” He reached for his phone, pushed speed dial, and put it to his ear as he left the room.
Liz looked at Mike. He shook his head at her.
“What?” she asked.
“One day he’s going to either push back real hard, or just keep walking.”
“And your point is?”
“Give the man a damn break, Liz.”
“I can’t,” she ground out.
“Then give yourself one.”
Galen came back in. “Let’s go. Foley will have them out of our way in twenty minutes.”
*
Liz held her hand out to the flashy pony standing in the cross ties. “Hi there handsome. You all alone here?”
A little girl popped out of the tack room lugging a box of grooming tools. Cute, thought Liz. She was about ten, blonde, blue-eyed and had an impish grin.
“He’s not alone. He’s mine. I’m Tory.”
“Aren’t you a lucky girl.”
“I know.” She let the box of brushes clatter to the floor and threw her arms around the buckskin’s neck, hugging him with her face against his golden hide and her hands tangled in his short black mane. The pony dropped his head between her shoulder blades and returned the hug.
“His registered name is Sunshine Superstar but I just call him Sunny and he’s the best. He never tries to buck me off and he only refuses to go over a jump if I make a mistake and ride him in wrong.” She picked up a pair of adorable, pink, child-size brushes and began to groom Sunny. “You know, ponies are much smarter than people think.”
“Absolutely,” Liz agreed. “And the girls who know that are even smarter. Do you show him?”
“I’ve been to three schooling shows and I got four third-place ribbons, but Nathan—he’s my trainer—says you shouldn’t go to the big shows unless you’re ready to win. And he says I won’t be ready until next season on account of I didn’t start jumping until last year so I’m not nearly polished enough.”
“Are lots of the other girls polished enough?”
“Oh yes.” She ran the comb through Sunny’s silky tail, taking care to untangle knots without ripping out any hair. “That’s why a bunch of the stalls are empty. Everyone else is at a show today. Nathan too, so my lesson was changed to seven-thirty. I normally ride right after school but not today.” She sighed. “It’s kind of lonely for Sunny and me when nobody else is here. And it will be dark when my lesson is over so Nathan will take me home after.”
Liz looked down the shedrow at the three horses she knew belonged to Kayla—she’d read the nameplates on their doors on the way in. “How come those horses aren’t at the show?”
“Oh, they’re Kayla’s.”
“And she doesn’t go to shows?”
Her eyes grew big. “Not this time, and it made her real sad, too. I guess she had to go on vacation because she cried when she said goodbye to them.”
Liz’s heart stuttered. “What do you mean?”
“The other day. After she had her lesson. I heard her because Sunny’s stall is beside Macho’s. Macho is her dressage horse.”
Liz prodded. “What did she say exactly?”
“Mostly, ‘I love you’ and ‘I’m going to miss you.’ Then she said she was sorry she had to go but the plans were made and there was no way out of it.” Her eyes were serious. “I know what that’s like you know, because last Christmas I had to go to Hawaii with my Mom and Dad and leave Sunny behind. I cried then, too, because I knew how much I was going to miss him.”
“Did you see Kayla leave after she said goodbye?”
“No. She was gone when my lesson was over, and then I had to walk Sunny to cool him out before I groomed him. It’s very important to cool a horse properly, you know.”
“That’s true.”
Tory looked at Liz’s borrowed boots. “Are you here to ride?”
“No. I’m checking out the stable. I have a horse I’d like to bring here.”
“What kind?”
“He’s a Thoroughbred.”
“Wow, Kayla has a Thoroughbred, and Nathan says he could be a champion if he could just learn to relax and not be such a wing-nut.”
Liz laughed, “Mine isn’t high strung at all. He’s quiet and gentle.”
“Sunny is quiet and gentle, too.”
At the sound of booted feet on concrete, Liz glanced over her shoulder and saw a wiry man approaching. “You must be Nathan.” She held out her hand. “I’m Liz. I called earlier about stall space.” She nodded toward the row of empty stalls. “Looks like you have some vacancies.”
He smiled and focused past Liz. “Tory, best get some tack on that pony. Your lesson is in ten minutes.” She nodded and he turned his attention back to Liz. “I’ll show you what I have.”
As he led her away from the grooming area, they passed Kayla’s horses and Liz stopped to pet one. “This looks like a Thoroughbred.”
“Yes. A failure at the track, but he jumps like a gazelle. Lots of scope.”
She ran her hand down the bay’s neck. “He sure is handsome. How come he’s not at the show with all the rest?”
“He was entered, and way overdue to be showing at a higher level. But something happened to his owner and she couldn’t go.”
“Was she hurt?”
“No.” He shrugged. “It’s complicated, and such a shame.” He shook his head. “She was so ready and her father had finally given his consent.”
“He can be a problem?”
“She’s never been allowed to go to a show and stay overnight. Her father won’t allow it even though the girls are always well-chaperoned.”
“Strict.”
He didn’t respond. Instead he was staring at the boots she wore. He looked up. “Are you local or FBI?”
She smiled. “That obvious?”
“Not at first. But yeah, even though you look perfectly natural in Kayla’s boots and around the horses.”
“How’d you know they were Kayla’s?”
“On Wednesday, her horse bore left over a fence and she scraped her boot on the standard. I can see the mark and the bit of green paint along the outside of the ankle. I had her remove the boot at the time to make sure she was okay.”
Liz’s heart pounded and she stared at him. “She was wearing these boots on Wednesday?”
“Yes.”
“Does she wear her boots home or leave them here usually?”
“She was wearing them when she left.”
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely.” He looked away for a moment. “She’d had a lousy lesson, couldn’t seem to concentrate, and I drilled her hard, threatened to scratch her from the jumping classes at the weekend show. She kept making careless mistakes so I finally cut the ride short, sent her out of the ring. She left in tears and I felt like crap. Kayla’s just not a crier, you know?” He grimaced.
“I waited so she had time to untack and put her horse away, then went to check on her, but she was already gone. I looked outside and saw her halfway down the driveway, walking. Figured, hell, leave her be, she obviously wanted to be alone.” His eyes spoke volumes. “I could have prevented the kidnapping. All I had to do was go after her, bring her back, and be nice to her, dammit.”
“Hey, shit happens. It’s not your fault, Nathan.”
“Maybe not, but I was hard on her and I just wish I could tell her I’m sorry. She’s a good kid, you know?”
“Yeah, I think I do.” She handed him her card. “You think of anything, no matter how trivial, please call me.”
When Liz slid into the passenger seat, Celine put the car in gear and pulled out of the stable yard, but stopped at the end of the driveway. “Want to talk?”
Liz looked down at the boots she wore. “Not yet.”
“Back to the hacienda?”
“Sure. But I need junk food first. Hang a left here. There’s a drive-in about a mile down the road.”
“Drive-thru window?”
“No, park. I’ll use the bathroom while we’re there.”
*
Galen hovered on the edge of furious while listening to Celine on speaker. “What the hell do you mean she ditched you?”
“Come on, Galen. You’re not stupid.”
“Where are you?”
“Tasty Burger on highway 40 between the country club and Garcia’s place.”
He watched the monitor as Mike brought up a split screen with a street map and a view of the building. “She give you any hint what she was up to?”
“She left a note at the counter for me... ‘Celine, following a hunch. Couldn’t say anything or Galen would have beat it out of you. Back in an hour. Liz.’”
“Fuck.”
“I guess this means she ditched the wire, too,” said Mike. “Did you hear anything?”
“Yeah,” Galen answered, “She said ‘Need a minute, boys.’ I heard a toilet flush and then silence. Figured she wanted bathroom privacy, no big deal. Fucking sneaky, obstinate woman.”
“Are you coming here, Galen?”
“No. Mike’s sending Theo so hang tight. I’ll meet you back here.”
“Works for me,” Celine responded.
When a dial tone sounded, Mike shut off the phone, and stuffed it into his pocket.
“On my way,” Theo said as he headed for the door. He grinned at Galen. “You want me to cuff her for the drive home?”
“Very funny.”
Mike added his two cents’ worth, “Actually, I should consider cuffing you instead.”
“Go ahead,” Galen responded. “I’ll still be able to get my hands around her throat.”
Mike leaned back in his chair with a smile. “She’ll be fine. She’s not stupid.”
“Yeah, don’t I know it.” But he thought about her reaction to the picture she’d seen in Garcia’s room. She wasn’t invincible.
*
Liz watched the approaching car and was momentarily blinded by the headlights as it turned off the road into the dark parking lot behind the closed service station. She waited until he rolled down the window and called out her name, then emerged from her hiding place behind the dumpster.
She climbed into the old gray Tempo and held out her hand. “Thanks for coming, Juan.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Look, I’m gonna cut right to the chase because I don’t have time to play games. I know you helped Kayla run away, but I’m afraid something’s gone wrong and she’s in trouble.”
He stared at her. “What do you mean?” Guilt and fear radiated from his pores.
“I need to find her, Juan, to make her safe.”
“She wants you to find her.”
“Pardon?”
He sighed and shook his head. “I told her it was all wrong, but she said she had to run away.”
“Away? From what? Who?”
“I’m not sure. She told me it was a secret.”
Liz’s heart was in her throat. She struggled to sound calm and in control. “Start at the beginning and tell me everything.”
His hands gripped the steering wheel. He swallowed hard. “I promised my mother I’d always look after her like a sister.” He lifted his eyes. “Because she is my sister. Garcia is my father.”
Remarkably unsurprised, Liz filed the knowledge away, but refused to give it any attention at the moment. “Her plan, Juan. What was her plan?”
His shoulders rose stiffly and then his body went slack as though some kind of internal war had suddenly ended.
“She told Charlotta she wanted to meet a boy after her riding lesson that day, and they hatched a plan to keep her father busy for a couple of hours. But actually, I was to pick her up, bring her home and then she was taking a cab to meet her grandparents. She was going to stay with them for a few days until you found her.”
“How was I supposed to find her?”
“She’s says she’s gifted. Calls herself telepathic. She thinks you are, too.”
“Why?”
“She just believes it’s true. When she was really young, Garcia used to take her to Charlotta’s house with him. They’d lock her in your room, supposedly for a nap. Probably more likely just to keep her out of the way while they—” He shrugged. “You know, while they were together.
“Anyhow, Kayla said she would look at your stuff, sleep in your bed, even put on your clothes sometimes. I guess that’s where her connection came from. She thinks she knows you, like some kind of special friend. She used to tell Beth’s Pride about you as though she’d actually been talking to you. It was almost spooky sometimes, kind of like she was making stuff up.”
“And she thought she could talk to me telepathically?”
“Did you ever hear her?”
