Made for You (3 page)

Men who treated women as less than equals infuriated her. But men who hurt women, men who killed women, put her into a rage so great that she knew she had to keep a tight rein on herself. After what her father did to her and her mother—

Before she could stop them, memories of the past flashed through her mind.

Her mother’s screams and Kelley’s own cries rang in her ears…from the time she was a little girl until she ran away from home as a teenager, her father had beaten both of them. Memories assaulted her of all of the tears she’d cried as she’d watched her mother being knocked around by her father…and then how her father had whipped Kelley with a belt when her mother wasn’t there to take her father’s punches.

When he wasn’t beating them, he would tell them how worthless they were. He’d say a woman’s only uses were to have babies, and to cook for and clean up after men.

Isaac Petrova had been more than a bastard. He’d been evil. She’d hated him more than she’d hated anyone in her life. She had never stopped hating him.

She buried her face in her hands, even as pain shot through her from moving her shoulder. Her skin felt hot and tight.

Guilt weighed heavily on her soul. Kelley’s father had killed her mother not long after Kelley had run away from home when she was sixteen. If she’d been there or had done something to stop him, her mother might still be alive. But Kelley wondered if she’d be dead just like her mother if she’d stayed around.

Isaac Petrova was in prison for his wife’s death. Kelley had never been to visit him and never would. He would rot there.

God, how she missed her mother. Kelley felt a hot tear at the corner of her eye and brushed it away impatiently. She didn’t cry, damn it. Long ago she’d promised herself she’d never cry again and that she would never, ever be a victim.

Instead, she fought to uplift and protect women and volunteered at women’s shelters when she could. She had worked hard to succeed in a male-dominated career and had made a place for herself.

She leaned back against the pillows, frustration making her entire body tense and her shoulder throb even more. She didn’t consider herself to be a victim in any way. Belle and Laura were the victims.

Kelley gripped the hand of her good arm into a fist. When she got out of this damned hospital, she’d do what she could from home until she was stronger. Hopefully it wouldn’t be that long before Taynor and Belle were found, and Kelley wanted to find whomever it was that had shot her, too. One thing she refused to do was sit around and let that bastard get away with the little girl.

Nancy walked in holding a syringe. “I need to give you another dose of morphine, Detective.”

“I said no.” Kelley shook her head and clenched her jaw as she tried not to cry out from the pain it caused when she made the movement. “I don’t need it.”

With a sigh, Nancy said, “You cops are all the same. Too damned stubborn for your own good.”

Kelley felt like snapping at Nancy, but the nurse was only doing her job. Kelley knew she shouldn’t take out her frustrations on the woman.

She let out her breath. “I’m sorry, but I’m a little wound up right now.”

Nancy smiled. “So you’ll take the morphine?”

Kelley shook her head. “The only thing that will make me feel any better is getting the hell out of this place.”

“That’s not going to happen today.” Nancy started to leave the room then looked over her shoulder as she paused in the doorway. “Get some rest, Detective. The more you rest, the sooner your body will heal.” The nurse turned away again and left the room.

Kelley let out a rush of breath. She had to admit that she wasn’t a very good patient. She’d only recently been cleared to go back to work from the head injury and concussion. For some reason the back of her head ached where the stitches had been.

Here she was, right back where she’d been a couple of weeks ago. She’d been lucky in both instances. She could have died as a result of the explosion, or she could have died this morning when the man had shot her.

She narrowed her eyes as she thought of Taynor and his accomplice. She prayed Reese and the men and women in blue would find the bastard and the little girl soon. If they didn’t, come hell or high water, Kelley would.

* * * * *

After yet another dead-end lead, Reese ground his teeth. He was determined to find Taynor and Belle. Not only for the little girl’s sake, but for Kelley, too. Finding the man who’d shot Kelley was top on Reese’s list, too.

He leaned back in his seat at his desk that faced Kelley’s. He hated seeing her chair empty and would have liked nothing more than to have her there right now.

The thought of how close Kelley had come to death was a knife to his gut. He didn’t know what he’d do if something happened to her. She wasn’t just his partner—

He frowned and picked up a pen from his desk and fiddled with it. What was Kelley if she wasn’t just his partner? He thought about that moment in the hospital when he’d touched her and the crazy feelings that had gone through him. From her expression, she’d felt it, too.

His frown deepened and he started tapping the pen on a pad of paper on his desk. He wasn’t too sure he wanted to explore those feelings right now.

He scanned the computer screen, looking over the leads from the Amber Alert. He’d gone through them time and again. All of the leads were being followed up on, but none of them had panned out so far. He’d been out to investigate the strongest leads himself. He gritted his teeth and barely kept from snapping the pen he was gripping and tossed it back onto the desk instead.

Something about this case hit close to home with Kelley and Reese wondered why. He’d noticed that most cases involving domestic violence against a woman or child set Kelley off. It was beyond her being passionate about her job. Something about this one was even worse for Kelley.

The more he thought about it, the more his keen investigative senses made him want to learn more. He wanted to know what made Kelley Petrova so passionate about her work… Exactly what made her tick?

A part of him knew he shouldn’t invade her privacy in that way, but the part that wanted to know won out.

He searched through the police database and came up with Kelley’s file. He felt a moment’s guilt, but pushed it aside. As he read the file his mouth tightened into a thin line. Kelley’s mother was deceased and her father was in prison. The file didn’t tell him a whole lot more.

Reese opened up an Internet browser and typed in her father’s name, Isaac Petrova and her mother’s name, Jill Petrova. He had to sort through various hits, but finally found old articles dating back fifteen years ago when Kelley would have been sixteen.

As he read through the articles, Reese’s brows narrowed. Isaac Petrova had been found guilty of murdering his wife, Jill. They’d had one daughter but her name had not been released as she had been a minor at the time.

The article told of the brutal murder where Isaac had bludgeoned his wife to death and that he had abused his minor child.

Reese’s gut clenched. The shock that went through him wasn’t just because of what had happened to her mother and the fact that her father had beat them both. It was because his story was eerily familiar to hers. What were the odds that they’d been through such similar things as they grew up?

What had happened to Kelley was enough to make her as passionate as she was about seeing that justice was served when it came to domestic violence. That was in line with how he felt, too, after his own upbringing.

When he thought about what Kelley had gone through, he found himself wanting to beat the shit out of Isaac Petrova. If the man hadn’t been in prison, Reese would have wanted to track him down and do it himself.

He closed out the browser and went back to checking up on leads for the Taynor case. Something had to break and soon.

Chapter 3

Kelley stood in her kitchen, glad to be home even though it would be some time yet before the doctor cleared her to go back to work. A couple of days in the hospital had nearly driven her out of her mind.

Now that she was back, she would figure out what she could do from home to find Taynor and Belle. Kelley shook her head. How had he eluded the police so well?

She rubbed her temples. She was exhausted from the little sleep she’d had. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Laura’s body…and Belle’s, too.

And then there were the nightmares.

Laura’s funeral had been yesterday. The fact that Belle’s birth father had murdered her mother hit so close to home that Kelley felt almost shattered from it. It was all she could do not to let it affect her in a way that might cripple her ability to do her job and find Laura’s killer.

Kelley’s phone rang. Since her right arm was in a sling, she had to pull the phone out of her pocket with her left hand and she almost dropped the device. She looked at the number and scowled. Her grandmother again—she’d called twice while Kelley was in the hospital. She had no desire to speak to her paternal grandmother, so she pressed the button to send the call to voicemail and then pocketed the phone again. Dolores Petrova lived in Phoenix, which wasn’t far enough away as far as Kelley was concerned.

The fact that her father’s mother had been calling made Kelley think about the past, something she tried not to do. She wandered into her sparsely furnished living room. She’d never been much of a decorator or creature of comfort. She wasn’t a homebody or a collector, and she only had one memento of her childhood—with the exception of the scar.

She moved to an end table and used her left hand to pick up the Christmas globe that Kelley’s mother had given her when she was five. The scene inside the snow globe was of Santa and a sleigh with nine tiny reindeer pulling it. Rudolph was in the lead with his shiny red nose.

Kelley smiled wistfully at the globe that reminded her of the times she and her mother had spent together, while Isaac was at work. Every Christmas, Jill would find a moment to give Kelley a snow globe when they were alone. Over the years, Kelley had accumulated quite a collection and had kept them hidden from her father.

Now and then, when the house was quiet and Isaac had drunk himself into a stupor, Kelley would get out the snow globes and dream of visiting the magical places inside the globes. Some were Christmas scenes, others with characters and lands from fairytales. The globes had included Cinderella and her prince next to the pumpkin coach, the Little Mermaid under the sea, Belle and her Beast, and several others.

Those were all gone now with the exception of the very first one, which Isaac hadn’t found. He had discovered her hiding place and had thrown all of the other globes at the wall. He had shattered them, leaving her in tears while she cleaned up the broken pieces and the destroyed worlds.

She gripped the snow globe she was holding so tightly her knuckles hurt. Her mother had been a kind and gentle person who had been taken in by Isaac and his charm. He’d wooed her with flowers and other romantic gestures, until she married him. They weren’t too far into their marriage before he’d started abusing her.

The only time Isaac hadn’t beaten Jill had been when she was pregnant because he’d been so sure they would have a son. Not long after Kelley was born, he started beating Jill again, blaming her for not giving him a boy. He didn’t start abusing Kelley until she was five, and even then he always made sure the bruises were out of sight.

For a long time, Kelley had blamed her mother for not leaving Isaac. But Jill had felt trapped. She hadn’t gone to college, had never worked, had no money, and no way to support her daughter.

Kelley closed her eyes tightly before opening them again, and carefully set the snow globe down beside the others. Collecting them had been a way of remembering her mother. Kelley purchased a globe every Christmas that reminded her of one of her mother had given her.

The doorbell rang, catching Kelley off guard. She wasn’t expecting anyone—unless Nikki was early, and Nikki was
never
early. As it was, Kelley always had to tell her friend to pick her up twenty minutes earlier than she really needed to leave, so she knew it couldn’t be her.

Kelley glanced at the entryway table. She kept her Glock in a drawer in the table when she wasn’t carrying the weapon. She wasn’t as good left-handed as she was using her right, but she could still do a damned good job of protecting herself if she needed to.

She moved quietly to the door and peeked out the peephole. Shocked, she drew back, feeling a mixture of surprise, pain, and anger so hot it felt as if her skin might burn off. What was
she
doing here?

Gritting her teeth, she unlocked the doorknob followed by the bolt lock, and jerked the door open. For a long moment she and the sharply dressed older woman stared at each other.

“Aren’t you going to tell your grandmother hello?” Dolores Petrova said in a disapproving tone.

Kelley tried to school her expression but no doubt it looked as hard and angry as she felt. “Why are you here, dear grandmother?”

Dolores gave a pained smile. “Invite me in and I’ll tell you why I’m here.”

Kelley scowled but opened the door wide enough to let her grandmother in. Kelley wasn’t in the mood for Dolores to make a scene in front of her neighbors. The older woman was good at making scenes.

After closing the door behind Dolores, Kelley stood in the middle of the living room and clenched the hand of her good arm into a fist. Her shoulder ached from the tension in her whole body. “Why did you come here without an invitation?”

“If you’d answer your phone, you’d know,” Dolores said dryly.

Kelley ignored the response. “What do you want?”

Dolores brushed an imaginary piece of lint off the tailored jacket of her expensive taupe business suit and schooled her tone. “Is that any way to talk to your grandmother?”

“You haven’t been my grandmother for fifteen years.” Kelley was having a difficult time controlling her temper. “What do you want?” she repeated.

Dolores tilted her chin. “Your father is dying from lung cancer.”

A confusion of feelings came over Kelley, shock being the strongest. “So?” she finally said. “Is that supposed to mean something to me?”