Trusting Ryan

Ryan understood that. Righting wrongs was what made his past, his history, his genealogy conscionable, too.

CHAPTER TWO

AUDREY DIDN’T WAIT around for his call. And only checked her cell phone so many times Sunday evening because she gave the number to all her clients, and if a child needed her, tomorrow could be too late.

It wasn’t Ryan’s fault she’d bared her soul like an idiot the night before. He had no way of knowing she’d shared with him more than she’d ever told anyone.

She’d come across like some pathetic victim, instead of the strong and healthy woman she’d become.

With the hundred-year-old hardwood floors of her Victorian-style cottage shining, she put away the cleaning supplies she’d hauled out and went upstairs to the treadmill. And half an hour later, panting and sweaty, headed across the hall to her home office—the only other room upstairs—and read over her files for the next day.

When everyone else in the world was relaxing, watching television, reading, napping, Audrey worked.

The kids whose lives seemed reduced to files of unfortunate facts, whose parents, for a variety of reasons, were unable to parent effectively, called out to her. They were always calling out to her.

Kaylee Grady. Date of birth, 9/29/04. That made her four years old. Audrey looked through the documents of the new case she had an initial meeting on the following morning.

Kelsey Grady. Date of birth, 9/29/04.

Twins.

Lifting the cover page, she studied the picture underneath. They were identical. Blond. With chubby cheeks—and far too serious eyes. Their parents had been killed in a car accident during a blizzard the previous February. There’d been no will. And the family was fighting over custody. They wanted to split up the girls to satisfy members from both sides.

“Over my dead body.” Audrey’s voice, usually a comfort, sounded loud in the gabled room. Loud and lonely.

And she glanced at the cell phone she’d carried up with her. Nothing. No missed calls. No messages.

She didn’t blame him for not calling.

The cuckoo clock in the family room downstairs of her 1920s, whitewashed home chirped eight times. Not meaning to, Audrey counted every one, and then knew what time it was. A piece of information she’d purposely been denying herself.

It was just that, last night, she and Ryan had crossed into new territory. Hadn’t they?

That of friends, trusted friends. Or something. It wasn’t as though they were kids, playing the dating game. They were mature adults. Getting to know each other. Sharing a moment in time.

A phone call would have been nice. That was all.

HE WAS STILL working the eleven-to-seven shift. Not because he had to—no, Ryan Mercedes had all the right contacts in all the right places, whether he wanted them or not. He was on the night shift for one reason only.

A selfish reason.

Working nights allowed him to keep his distance from everyone in his life. Having to sleep when family gatherings happened, when an old school mate suggested going out for beers, anytime he was issued an invitation that got a little bit too close, he could always bow out with the excuse that he was working.

The night shift let him operate in a different world. A world where everyone slept—except those few who were working as well, or those who took advantage of others’ sleep to commit crimes against them.

The downside was, when he came off shift Monday morning, he was completely exhausted and wired at the same time. He’d been awake all day Sunday having dinner with his birth parents—he hadn’t seen two-month-old Marcus Ryan in over a week, and his biological cousin, Jordon, a fatherless young man Ryan had met the previous summer who seemed to gravitate to him, had been visiting from Cleveland. Then he’d visited his adoptive parents to watch the Reds game on television with his dad.

He hadn’t been to bed since Saturday night. And that session hadn’t contained his most restful sleep with the continuous interruptions of vivid dreams of a certain lady in the bed with him.

He’d never had a woman in his bed at the condo. Never had a woman in his bed, period.

So why was one suddenly appearing there, uninvited?

He wanted to think she was unwanted, but his body wouldn’t let him go quite that far.

He settled for…uninvited.

And still, nearly thirty-six hours after she’d left his apartment, he was thinking about her.

He was on shift again that night, Ryan reminded himself as he drove slowly through the streets of Westerville, cell phone in hand. Two kids were waiting for the school bus on the corner of Cleveland Avenue and Homeacres Drive. Usually there were three. The shorter girl was missing.

Ryan made a mental note to take the same route home tomorrow. And the next day. If the girl was still missing by the end of the week, he’d stop and ask about her.

In the meantime, he had to sleep. And sleep well. He couldn’t do his job on adrenaline alone. His instincts wouldn’t be as sharp. Lives could be at risk.

He had to get some rest.

“Hello?”

Her number was on speed dial only because a couple of her clients were under his investigation.

“Audrey? Is this a bad time? Did I wake you?”

Seven-thirty in the morning was early to some people.

“Of course not. I’ve been up a couple of hours.”

Well, then… “Are you at work? With someone? Should I call another time?”

“No, Ryan.” She chuckled. “This time is fine. I don’t have to be in court until ten-thirty this morning, and my breakfast meeting canceled.”

Canceled. She was free for breakfast. Unexpectedly. The thought of asking her to meet him somewhere for a quick bite sent alarm signals up his spine. Where was the harm in two friends having breakfast?

They both had to eat.

“So what’s up?” she asked, bringing to his attention the length of time he’d let lapse while he blubbered over the idea of asking her out to eat.

Shifting in his seat, adjusting the pistol digging into his thigh beneath the brown tweed sports jacket he wore, Ryan thought about the case he’d been working on for most of the night.

Focused on the life he’d chosen to live.

The juvenile who’d beaten his stepfather to a pulp, claiming that it was self-defense. He’d claimed some other pretty horrendous things, too.

Reviewing four hours of witness testimony, tapes, doctors’ reports and police records had netted Ryan no more than they already had.

“The prosecutor’s going to charge Markovich.”

“No way.” He heard the drop in her voice and felt as if he’d failed not only the fifteen-year-old boy whom he’d believed, but Audrey, too.