Agent Daddy

FAITH SHARED THE FRONT SEAT with both children. Colin was very quiet, his body heavy and limp. Noelle’s head drooped against Faith’s arm.

Faith, on the other hand, was so wired she almost shook. She strained against her seat belt to peer ahead into the night and glance in the rearview mirror attached to the passenger door, ready to jump out of her skin if she caught sight of approaching lights from either direction.

Beside her, Trip called someone named George and told him everyone was safe, to come back to the ranch. Safe? She didn’t feel safe, not even enclosed in the big, warm truck, not even with Trip less than a foot away. She doubted she’d ever feel safe again.

She was so wound up in the lingering effects of the terrifying last hour or so that she jumped as the truck rattled over a cattle guard and under a huge wooden arc announcing the Triple T Ranch. Looking out into the dark fields, she said, “Where are all the cows?”

“Most are down in the winter pastures,” Trip replied.

As he spoke the headlights illuminated a pair of giant fir trees looming like sentinels on either side of the road. Trip drove past them into a large paved area flanked by a sprawling ranch-style house ablaze with lights. An equally well-lit barn and the dark shapes of a half-dozen other buildings loomed in the distance.

Trip hadn’t yet shut down the engine when the door of the house sprang open and a handful of people rushed outside.

“I take it they know about the car chase,” Faith said.

“Looks like it,” Trip said as a heavyset woman with graying red hair opened the passenger door. Bypassing Faith, she crooned assurances to Colin in a lilting Irish brogue as she lifted him from Faith’s arms. An older man asked Noelle if she was all right as he liberated her from the seat belt. Holding the children in protective embraces, they moved off with the others, voices raised as they reentered the house, leaving Trip and Faith alone in the sudden hush.

Trip slammed the truck door and came around to her side. “You’re awfully quiet, Faith. Are you sure you’re not hurt?”

“Just shaky,” she said.

His fingers were warm and strong as they grasped her hand and gently pulled her from the truck. She landed in front of him. She found his closeness both reassuring and frightening; that much raw male energy was unsettling, but in a totally different way than David Lee’s proximity.

“Thank you,” he said as he released her hand.

Blinking her eyes, she looked up him. “Thank you for what? For almost getting your niece and nephew killed?”

“No, for keeping your head and driving so well no one was seriously injured. In my book, that deserves a thank you.”

“If I hadn’t exposed them to David Lee, they wouldn’t have been in danger in the first place.”

He grew very still, intimidating in his utter silence, until he finally said, “Who the hell is David Lee?”

“My landlady’s son.”

“He’s the one who did this? You saw his face or recognized his vehicle?”

“No, I didn’t see anyone’s face, and the vehicle was just a dark truck, maybe even a van. But it must have been David. Who else would it be?”

Trip shook his head, and though she couldn’t see his expression clearly as the light was now at his back, she could feel the intensity of his concentration. “What aren’t you telling me?” she asked.

He didn’t answer. A chill snaked up her spine.

“Does this have to do with your babysitter? Did you talk to the police? Has anyone heard from her?”

“You’re cold,” he said. “Let’s go inside.”

Although she knew it wasn’t the cold that was making her shiver, she kept quiet. Leaving the dark behind, she made her way to the porch, where welcoming lights shining through the windows and the muted voices of the people inside reminded her there were still places people called home. Maybe not for her, but at least for the children and for Trip, and that thought brought a dollop of comfort. Maybe for an hour or so she could share their homecoming, she could pretend it included her, too.

She could be safe.

And then she would have to return to her basement apartment where David Lee had a key.

TRIP NEVER ENTERED THE ranch house without experiencing a half-dozen simultaneous emotions, all of which were unwelcome tonight. The place held way too much baggage.

What he needed was a few minutes to think, but that wasn’t going to happen right away. As Mrs. Murphy made a fuss over Faith, he paused by the big oak hall tree located in the foyer, where he hung his jacket on a hook and caught a glance at himself in the old mirror. He looked pissed. Well, hell, he was pissed. He tried a smile. That just made him look worse.

He dug out his cell phone and called the sheriff’s department, using the number he’d programmed into the phone several months earlier. The sheriff took down the location of Faith’s wrecked car and said to give him a while. Then he called his former boss at the FBI and left a message asking the SAC to include local law enforcement in updates about Neil Roberts.

He took off his gun and holster next and, opening the closet to his right, worked the safe combination and deposited the firearm inside. The safe was one of the very few things he’d brought with him from his old life to his new one. He detoured into the office, spent a few minutes on the Internet, then shuffled through the stack of invoices George had left for him to take care of, while the printer spewed out a dozen images of Neil Roberts. After that, he went looking for Faith and the kids, almost positive where he’d find them.

Mrs. Murphy, his housekeeper, had herded everyone into the big ranch-style kitchen. He was greeted by the smell of beef stew bubbling in a huge cast-iron pot atop the stove and the warmth of a flickering fire in the grate. This was his favorite room in the house, the room that always seemed to wrap its arms around you on a cold night.

Faith sat on a wooden chair with Colin in her lap, while Mrs. Murphy examined the baby head to toe, clucking and fussing as she did so. The little boy had a yellowish knot on his forehead the size of a quarter and wore only a diaper.

Mrs. Murphy looked up from her task and zeroed in on Trip. “Did you find out anything about G-I-N-A?”

Trip shook his head, willing himself not to glance at Noelle.

“Tell me the truth now, was this accident connected to her disappearance?” Mrs. Murphy persisted.

“I can’t see how…I just don’t know,” Trip said. He turned to Noelle then. She sat on a chair by the fire, her solemn gaze taking in everything and everyone as usual. It was hard to believe she was the same screaming, crying child as an hour before, the same little girl who had wrapped her arms around his leg and held on for dear life. It was the first time she’d spontaneously responded to him. He was just sorry it had taken being scared to death to bring her around.

He went to his niece and gently tilted her head back while looking into her eyes. He could find no sign of a concussion.

“What’s wrong, Uncle Trip?” Noelle whispered as he rotated one of her small arms and then the other, looking for a sign that something hurt. When she winced, he pushed up the sleeve of her pink T-shirt to find a bruise on her forearm. He pressed it and she flinched a little, but not much.

“What do you mean?”

“Why did Mrs. Murphy spell Gina’s name? Where is Gina? Why didn’t she come to play with me and Colin?”

“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “She may have gone off on a little camping trip.”

Her voice grew very soft as she said, “Did she bring Buster back first?”

Buster? He shook his head as Mrs. Murphy grumbled, “Camping? In this weather?”

“Chief Novak thinks she went south with her boyfriend,” Trip said, releasing Noelle’s arm and turning to his housekeeper.

“Chief Novak, the imbecile,” Mrs. Murphy snorted, dismissing the man.

“I don’t think Gina liked Peter anymore,” Noelle said.

Mrs. Murphy shot Noelle a frown. “Has that girl been babbling on about improper things?”

“No,” Noelle said.

Trip doubted Noelle had the slightest idea what “improper things” meant. Nevertheless, his niece’s lips slipped in and out of a shy smile. Sometimes the little girl looked so much like her mother that Trip had to glance away to catch his breath. When he did so this time, he found Faith looking away from him as though embarrassed to have been caught watching.