morning she’d sold her pearls to yet another shady connection she’d learned of in prison she’d been on tenterhooks, wondering desperately if Melvin Dobbs would be able to find Barbara’s and Willa’s whereabouts with the medical data she’d given him.
It had been three days of knowing that Max would be on her trail, three days of looking over her shoulder and half expecting to see him there, even though she’d stayed in a different place every night.
“You said the kid and the woman both had a rare allergy to wasp stings, so I ran a cross-check on prescriptions for the antidote that had been ordered in adult and child strength from the same pharmacist.” Dobbs hit the Enter key and sat back as the glowing blue screen in front of him rapidly filled up with lines of type. “There were several matches, but only one where both the adult and the child were females. By the way, they’re still in the state.”
For a moment Julia wondered if she’d heard him correctly. “They’re still in this state?” she repeated stupidly.
At his casual nod her hand flew to her mouth, stifling a choked-off sob. She felt the hot prickle of tears in her eyes, but thankfully Dobbs’s attention wasn’t on her.
Dear God—they were still in Massachusetts! For two years she’d imagined Willa as being thousands of miles away from her, had ached with the certainty that between her and her daughter were rivers, mountains, countless cities as barriers—and all the time only a few hours at most had kept them apart.
She could see her today, Julia thought, her mind racing. She wouldn’t do anything rash or foolish—she wouldn’t do anything that might jeopardize her goal—but if she was careful she might be able to catch a glimpse of Willa in a park or a playground. Just one quick look. Surely that would be safe enough.
And then I’ll figure out a way to have you with me forever, sweetheart, she thought tremulously. I still don’t know how I’m going to do it, but we’ll be a family again, you and me.
She fixed her burning gaze on Dobbs’s computer screen as the lines of type scrolled downward and then stopped.
“That’s the one.” He grunted and reached over to a nearby printer. “I’ll run off a copy for you to—”
“She was in prison for killing the girl’s father and the woman’s husband, Dobbs. And unless you shut down that computer right now, you’re looking at hard time yourself.”
Shocked, Julia spun around at the sound of the harsh voice coming from the doorway. Her appalled gaze met the coldly assessing glance of the man standing there.
“Hullo, Tennant,” Max said with a tight smile. “Looking for something?”
“This is harassment, Ross.” She dragged in a constricted breath, and willed her voice to remain steady. “I warned you to leave me alone, and I meant it. You’re interrupting a private business transaction here, so get the hell—”
“I said shut down the computer, Dobbs. Do it,” Max ordered, not taking his eyes from Julia. “Right off the top of my head I can come up with at least two charges that can be laid against you unless you cooperate. Endangering the life of a child is the first one. Being an accessory to kidnapping is the second. Shut it down.”
But Melvin’s fingers were already flying over the keys, and even as Max delivered his ultimatum and Julia turned back to the computer, she saw the lines of type flicker and disappear from the screen. Her eyes opened wide in denial.
“Bring it back up, Dobbs,” she commanded unsteadily. “I paid you for that information. He’s got no authority to—”
“He’s a fed.” Flicking a switch at the side of his computer, the hacker jerked his head at the open ID wallet that Max was negligently displaying. “That’s authority enough for me.” Dismissively he turned away from Julia to the man behind her. “I didn’t know why she wanted it. Just get her out of here and let’s pretend this whole thing never happened, okay?”
“No! No, it’s not okay, dammit!” Her hands balled into fists at her sides, Julia looked wildly first at Dobbs, and then Max. “Damn both of you—that’s my daughter’s address you’re keeping from me. I have the right to know where she is!”
“No, Julia, you don’t.” Max had been standing a few feet away, but now he took two swift strides toward her. Behind the coolness of his gaze heat flared, and was immediately extinguished. “And if I even suspect that you’ve persuaded our venal friend here to change his mind and tell you where she is, I’ll have her relocated so fast you won’t get within a hundred miles of her. For a while after she was moved she was a sad and lonely little girl, but now she’s started to adjust. She’s in kindergarten now. Do you really want to be responsible for uprooting her all over again?”
“She was sad and lonely because her mother was taken away from her, for God’s sake!” Julia hissed at the implacable face only inches from hers. “You were responsible for that, Ross!”
“And I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat.” His voice was ice. “She’s got a shot at a normal life. She wouldn’t have that, growing up with the woman who killed her father, her uncle and two innocent bystanders.”
“You keep forgetting something.” He was so close she could feel the warmth of his breath on her parted lips, and she realized with a small shock that it had been years since there had been this little distance between her and a man. Julia thrust the thought aside and continued. “They had to let me go, Max. They couldn’t prove their case. I’m an innocent woman.”
“You got off on a technicality, Tennant!” As if she’d goaded him into action, he grasped her arms just above her elbows, and pulled her closer, obliterating the last few inches of space between them. His jaw was set and his grip on her felt like steel. “You got off, but that doesn’t mean you’re not guilty. The only innocent one in this whole damn mess is that little girl, and I intend to keep her safe—from you. Do we understand each other?”
She was vaguely aware of Melvin Dobbs, sitting frozenly a few feet away from them. But on a deeper, more visceral level, she suddenly felt as if nothing and no one had any solid reality except the man in front of her.
His grasp on her arms was tight enough that it should have been uncomfortable. Instead she felt ridiculously as if it was all that was keeping her from falling into a terrible void and plummeting to her own destruction. He was strong, she thought disjointedly, but his strength wasn’t merely a matter of muscle and sinew. It was a strength made up of conviction and a bedrock foundation of personal honor. He meant what he said. He cared enough about a child he hardly knew that he would go the limit to keep her safe.
Under different circumstances, she and Max Ross might have found themselves on the same side, she realized with a small shock. She would have liked that. He was a man a woman could count on.
And if she were honest with herself, in those alternate circumstances there might well have been more than just cooperation between them. Even now, facing each other as enemies, there was a suppressed undercurrent flowing beneath the surface of their anger and antagonism.
She distinctly remembered the first time she’d noticed him, although, as she’d learned during her trial, he’d been involved in the investigation from the first and had actually spoken with her an hour or so after the explosion on the night it had happened. She didn’t recall the encounter, but that was understandable. She’d been in shock those first few days, and then had come the nightmarish realization that the authorities saw her as their prime suspect. From then on her world had unravelled so swiftly she hadn’t taken in much of anything.
Besides, Max was the original invisible man. Obviously that was an asset in his line of work, and she supposed he’d cultivated that ability he had of unobtrusively melting into the background, but she still didn’t know how he did it. Granted, there was nothing about him that was jarringly noticeable, unless the casual observer happened to look directly into his eyes. They were a dark, clear green, and in the tan of his face they looked like chips of arctic ice. But his hair, dark brown and cut fairly