Return To Stony Ridge

Dark anger stirred. Her stomach clenched. She didn’t lower her gaze. She willed him to listen and believe.

“I know that men who get off on hurting women, children or animals should be tortured, castrated and imprisoned for the rest of their natural lives.”

R.J. blinked and sat back. His brow furrowed as he studied her.

“Tell me where Valerie is,” she pressed.

He scowled while his jaw clenched with some dark emotion. “I wish I knew.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Valerie disappeared from Heartskeep sometime last night.”

Teri closed her eyes as defeat washed over her. She was too late. Again. Bleakly she opened her eyes and regarded him.

“Lester got to them?”

“We don’t know what happened.” His voice roughened. “The police found her cell phone crushed behind the house near the fountain. Her car, all her belongings, everything was still there, except her.”

Her heart pounded faster. “What about Corey?”

To her surprise, R.J.’s features gentled. “The boy’s fine. Valerie left everything behind, including her son.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to protest that Valerie wasn’t Corey’s mother. She stopped the words in time, but it rankled all the same. Still, Lester hadn’t gotten Corey.

The jolt of hope was tempered by questions. “Why would Lester take Valerie and not Corey?”

Could Valerie still be alive?

“We don’t know that anyone did take her. It’s possible she left on her own.”

“Right. After crushing her cell phone.”

To her surprise, a hint of embarrassed color washed his face.

“It’s possible.”

Anything was possible. Maybe Teri hadn’t been too late after all. Maybe Valerie had sought asylum at Heartskeep in order to leave Corey behind so she could continue to run unhampered by a young child. She could have crushed the cell phone herself in an effort to point the police in Lester’s direction.

Staring at his troubled expression, Teri decided R.J. didn’t have the answers she needed.

“This Heartskeep place is a woman’s shelter, right?”

He nodded.

“Can you take me there?” If he noticed the edge of demand in her voice, it didn’t seem to bother him.

“At the moment? No.”

“In the morning, then.” But she let her dissatisfaction show.

“Valerie is gone, Teri.”

But Corey wasn’t. “She may come back.”

“For Corey,” he agreed. “I can’t see her leaving her son behind.”

She swallowed a retort. “Doesn’t Heartskeep have safety precautions in place to protect the women?”

“Of course it does. For one thing, there’s a high fence around the perimeter of the estate.”

She snorted. “Fences can be climbed.”

“Not this one. And the house is wired with an alarm system.”

She dismissed the alarm with a wave of her hand. “No cameras? No guard dogs?”

“It’s a woman’s shelter, not a prison.”

“Well, someone must have seen something.”

“The police have questioned everyone.” He rubbed his jaw in frustration. “No one knows what happened. Valerie simply disappeared sometime after she went to her room last night. We spent most of the day searching the grounds. Heartskeep has umpteen acres of ground to cover and a lot of it is wooded. Despite that, there should have been some sign somewhere if she didn’t leave under her own power, and there wasn’t. Except for the cell phone.”

Wearily, Teri leaned back against the couch and closed her eyes. He could be lying, but she didn’t think he was.

“It doesn’t make sense.”

“Tell me about it,” he agreed.

When she opened her eyes again, he was studying her with a masculine expression that made her distinctly uneasy. Self-consciously, she pushed at a strand of hair slipping out from under the towel.

“Have they asked her husband what happened?”

“They have to find him first.”

“He’s…not at home?” she corrected, changing the tone to make it a question.

“Not according to the police in Maryland.”

Her fingernails tapped restlessly against the steaming mug. Reflected firelight flickered across his features. His dark good looks stopped short of being to-die-for handsome, but R.J. projected an aura of self-confidence that would be irresistible to most women.

Teri scowled at him. “Will you please take me to Heartskeep?”

He picked up his mug and took a long swallow of the rapidly cooling chocolate. “Why?”

“So I can talk to the people who were there last night.”

“You don’t need me for that. All you have to do is go and ring the buzzer.”