Slocum, because of your son. His name is Sam, and he needs your help.” She didn’t show him the photo. She wanted to choose exactly the right moment.
“I don’t have a son. I’m a lot of things, lady, and careful is one of them.”
“Do you know a woman named Laura Schofield?”
“No.”
“Her name was Laura Thompson when the two of you were engaged.”
A muscle tightened in his jaw. “If Laura has a kid, it isn’t mine.”
“I’m sorry to tell you that Laura Thompson is dead, Mr. Slocum.”
The color drained from beneath his swarthy complexion. He pulled out one of the chairs and sat down facing her. “What happened?”
“Breast cancer. She passed away two months ago.”
Ben leaned back in his chair. Clearly he was upset. She hadn’t expected him to take the news so hard. She thought maybe it was a good sign.
He took a drink of his coffee, seemed to steady himself. “I’m sorry to hear about Laura. But as I said, if Laura had a kid’”
She turned the photo over and slid it across the table. “This is your son, Mr. Slocum, Sam. He’s nine years old.”
Ben stared at the photo as if it were a hand grenade about to explode. He was shaking his head, but those pale eyes remained riveted on the pair staring up at him from the smiling face in the picture.
“Do you remember a night nearly ten years ago when you went to see Laura? The two of you had ended your engagement years earlier. You were still in the SEALs, home on leave in San Diego. Laura was living in L.A.”
She could see that he recalled. He reached over and picked up the photo. There was no mistaking whose child it was. With Sam’s black hair, strong jaw and ice-blue eyes, the two were nearly identical.
He didn’t look away from the picture. “She didn’t tell me.” He glanced up. “Why didn’t she tell me?”
“It’s a long story, Mr. Slocum. If you give me a chance’”
“Ben. My name is Ben.”
“All right, Ben. The important thing is that you have a son and that Sam is missing.”
Ben came up out of his chair. “Missing? What do you mean, missing? He’s nine years old. How can he be missing?”
“Sam disappeared ten days ago. I’ve been talking to a detective named Owens in the missing-persons division of the Los Angeles Police Department. Unfortunately, the police believe Sam’s a runaway. Which is what his foster parents believe.”
He carefully studied her face. “But that isn’t what you believe.”
“No. I believe Laura’s ex-boyfriend, a man named Troy Bridger, took the child. The police have looked into it, but so far they haven’t been able to find any trace of either one of them. That’s why I’m here. I need your help, Ben. I know you’re a private detective. I need you to help me find your son.”
* * *
Ben was blown away, his mind in disjointed pieces.
Feelings of unreality that this could be happening. Disbelief that Laura would have his child and not tell him. Anger at her and everyone else who had kept the boy’s existence a secret. Those emotions and a dozen more sliced through him with brutal force.
He had a son. There was no mistake. The boy looked just like him. And the timing was right. He had been stationed in San Diego with SEAL Team One. He’d come home from a mission and found a letter from Laura. She wrote that she was living in L.A. and that she would love to see him. It was an opportunity, he’d thought, to find out if there was any chance of rebuilding the relationship they’d once shared.
He and Laura had met in his first year of junior college and he’d fallen hard for her blond beauty and outgoing personality. He had asked her to marry him and Laura had eagerly accepted.
A few months later, he had caught her in bed with one of his best friends.
Laura’s betrayal had stabbed like a knife, cutting out part of his heart and soul. For years, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her, unable to get her out of his head.
At first it had been like old times, laughing, talking late into the evening. That night, Laura had invited him into her bed and he wasn’t about to turn her down. The sex was great as always, but his feelings were no longer the same. The resentment was still there, buried deep inside him, the old animosity. He hated her and he loved her. And he hated himself for loving her. That hadn’t changed.
It was the last time he had seen her.
He looked over at the woman sitting across the table. He needed to get moving, take some kind of action. Do something to find his son. But he needed information first. Without it, his efforts would be useless.
He called on his years of training and self-control and forced himself to sit back down. “Exactly who are you?”
She kept her fingers wrapped around her coffee mug. He thought that she was more nervous than she wanted him to guess.
“As I said, my name is Claire Chastain. I’m a social worker in Los Angeles County. I worked with Laura and Sam a few years back. They became more than a case to me. Laura and I were friends.”
He thought of the woman he had loved. Blonde and beautiful. Sparkling. That was Laura. Everyone adored her. But she was never what she seemed.
“You think this guy Bridger took him. Why would he do that?”
“To get even with Laura. He knew how much Sam meant to her. He was furious when she kicked him out.”
There was something in her eyes, the way they couldn’t quite meet his. “Laura’s dead,” he said. “I don’t see how taking my kid is going to hurt her. What aren’t you telling me?”
She returned her eyes to his face. “There’s a good chance he’s also trying to punish me. I disapproved strongly of Laura’s relationship with Troy. I think he blames me for the breakup. And he knows how much I care about Sam.”
“What kind of a man is he?”
“Not the sort you would want Sam to have for a father. He’s an alcoholic. He gets mean when he drinks. I never knew what Laura saw in him. Maybe his tough-guy persona appealed to her.” She looked up at him. “She loved you, and you were a SEAL. Troy Bridger looked a little like you. Maybe he reminded her of you in some way.”
“She never loved me. I was just an amusement to her.”
He could tell she wanted to argue. Instead she took a sip of her coffee. “Laura was trying to get sober, but Bridger was a drunk and he pulled her back to the bottle. She ended the relationship when she started getting sick.”
“How long did she live with him?”
“Only a couple of months. I can’t imagine why she stayed even that long.”
“He isn’t some kind of pervert? Some guy on the sex offender’s list?”
“The police checked. They said he wasn’t on the list. At least not under that name. The few times I talked to him, he never seemed inclined in that direction.”
“But you don’t know for sure.”
He didn’t miss the guilt that moved across her features. “No, I don’t know for sure. But my guess is his motive was more about revenge against Laura.”
“And you.”
The guilty look returned. “That’s right.”
“Because she dumped him and he blames you.”
“Yes. And Troy has this men-are-superior thing. He doesn’t value women very highly, and Sam’s