Ransomed Dreams (15 page)

Steven groaned. “Can’t you two skip the mushy stuff when company’s around?”

Sara grinned. “Since when have you been company Steven Kessler? Besides, according to my handsome husband, you might join couple-land sometime soon.” She turned her sparkling green eyes on his partner. “I hear she likes college ball. We might have a double date in our future.”

“Your husband talks too much.”

Clint transferred the crispy burgers to a serving dish with fish all around the side.

Sara batted her long lashes at him. “Wouldn’t our new fish tableware look great with real seashells as decorations? I hear Florida shells are awesome collectibles.” She sashayed down the stairs.

Steven spread out knives and forks, a grin lighting his often somber features. “Do I hear a beach vacation in your near future?”

Clint focused on Sara’s walking out in the yard with beach towels to wrangle in their little band of waterlogged children. “Like she’d leave her stethoscope for that long.”

“Or you a holster.”

“Touché.” Clint served up hot dogs and potato salad on Jonathan’s plate, cutting everything into small bites. No way his two-year-old would choke while he was on duty. “After this case wraps up, I’m fixin’ to lay ahold of some vacation time. We all need it.”

As everyone gathered around the fancy wrought iron furnishings, Clint nodded for Jonathan to pray.

“God. Food. Amen.”

Sara and Susannah shared identical smiles.

James prayed next. “Thanks for the sunshine and hot dogs. Please help us enjoy it. And God, if it’s not too much trouble, please let my new teacher be here next time we eat. I’d sure like a mommy like her.”

Steven’s face contorted into a sour pucker. Nothing like little-kid prayers to surface the big stuff. Clint offered up a short prayer of thanksgiving for food, friends, and safety. A
silent addition about Olivia and the Kensington family hung in the air around them.

Just like James’s prayer for a mother.

Clint and Sara locked eyes while the rest of the crowd chowed down. Eight years of marriage had perfected their silent language.

He answered her unspoken question with a wink. Clint would do his dead-level best to see Steven do more than talk about dating again.

He needed a woman’s influence to soften his rough edges. Especially a praying one. From the first moment Clint had watched the two of them interact, Gracie seemed a perfect fit for the job.

Even now, Clint read in Steven’s unspoken words the raw desire for what he and Sara enjoyed almost every day. After five years of praying, it had to be time.

Time for Steven to fall in love.

Time for James to have a mom.

And time for his partner to break open those locked compartments and face the past.

Time to heal.

F
riday. Another date. A second chance.

Gracie stared into the bathroom mirror and brushed her straight reddish-brown hair with a little more force than necessary. She had a little more quiver to her hands than last weekend. What if Steven never showed?

Or worse, what if the uninterrupted date made clear how incompatible they really were?

How opposite from life with Mark.

She wiped the single tear from her eye. Not the time for makeup messes. She walked out to the dresser, picked up the golden locket, and opened it. Something she had avoided for a year now.

Elizabeth. Red and squalling. With a thick head of light brown hair and a cute little nose. Tiny fists in the air.

Then Mark’s little man. Her husband had loved both their children with every cell in his body. Joshua had just awakened something in Mark that Elizabeth and her dolls had done for Gracie.
Someone just like me
.

Tears streaked her makeup. A long-ago song filled her mind. “Lord,
I want to be just like You. ’Cause she wants to be just like me.”
Well, the three pastors had sung he, but Gracie had always sung the line with she because her little Elizabeth had wanted to be a mommy just like her.

Oh, God. Why? Why did You let my family die?

Gracie sank to the floor at the foot of her bed. Jake laid his head on her lap. He’d grown used to the tears and always offered
his silent presence. At least she had Jake. He was her only living link to Mark and her babies.

Jake had licked their hands and faces like he slobbered on her at times.

Jake had carted Elizabeth around like a miniature horse more times than Gracie could count. What a dog.

“You miss them too, don’t you?”

He released a slow huff of air. She’d take that as a dog form of yes.

Fifteen minutes before she expected Steven at the door, the phone rang. She walked over to the nightstand and stared at her grayish phone. Her hand didn’t move. Not answering it felt like the safer course.

The basketballs bouncing in her belly hurt.

She wiped the remaining wetness from her cheeks and forced herself to pick up the phone before the answering machine clicked on. “Hello?”

A muffled word she didn’t recognize.

“Who is this?”

Gracie’s heartbeat kicked up a notch. All the dreams of Mark’s killer calling her on the phone to apologize filtered through her brain. They alternated with other images of the man coming after her with his black truck to finish the job.

“Gracie. Sorry. Thought your answering machine was going to pick up.”

Steven’s voice. Clipped. Cold.

Her heart didn’t return to a normal rhythm. “Is something wrong?”

He sighed into the receiver. “Yes. I’m not going to make our date tonight. Something’s come up at work, and I have to deal with it.”

“Oh.” So much for second chances.

“I’m sorry, Gracie. I have to go.”

And with that he disconnected the call. She held the phone in her hands until the dial tone registered with its annoying high-pitched
buzz. What had happened to the FBI agent with dazzling blue eyes who’d wanted to hear about her life? Told her she was beautiful? Made her think about the future?

“He’s disappeared without a trace.”

Jake lifted his head and turned it to the side. Who says dogs aren’t intuitive?

Gracie rubbed his muzzle and let him lick her cheeks. “At least I know you love me, huh. Jake?”

He barked a series of short yips in response and Gracie laughed. Then he ran out the door and down the steps. Her golden retriever hadn’t been declaring his undying love. More likely he had to use the bathroom.

Men. Okay, males. Canine or human, they didn’t make sense.

She descended the stairs and let her big lug of a dog out into the backyard. She stepped out onto the patio and lowered herself into a white Adirondack chair, watching the heavy clouds move in to block the fading sunset.

Such was her life. Promising bursts of color clouded by harsh reality.

“God, I don’t understand. Where are You? Where’s the healing Your Word promises? I’ve grieved and still sought You. I’ve tried to move on and find Your purpose, why You left me here.”

Gracie rubbed her empty left ring finger. “I thought …” Tears covered her words. “I guess I thought dating Steven was part of Your answer, a promise of something to look forward to again. His help in finding Mark and my babies’ killer.”

She smoothed the simple white sundress over her stomach. Both her arms and abdomen ached. A soul-searing ache. “I guess I put all my eggs in one basket and hoped … hoped someday I’d be a mom again. A wife again.”

Jake trotted over to her chair.

“I was stupid for making so much out of one little date.” She rubbed his honey-colored coat. “Well, I won’t do that again. Life’s better when I avoid letting those longings wake up. I’m a widow.
I had my one dose of happiness. No more kisses or babies or …”

The bitterness in her mouth halted her words. She swallowed it back down.

“Why God?” Gracie stared into the silent sky “Why won’t You at least help me find the one who ripped it all away from me?”

Or was it God who took everything? His way of teaching her some obscure lesson? He could have saved them. But He didn’t. She recalled the well-meaning comments of church folks from years past.

“Honey, maybe God’s just gettin’ you ready for even more blessing.”

“God could be getting your attention to deal with some deep issue.”

What, God? What issue had she missed? What sin had she committed to deserve having her life ripped apart by death like that? Did she not believe enough, pray for her family enough, trust God enough?

The comment she’d heard over and over at her family’s funeral hit again with the same gut-wrenching force.
“God makes all things good.”

A misquote of Romans 8:28.

A horrible, painful slap in the face. Nothing about watching her family die could ever be made good. Not in a million years. Not even by an all-powerful God.

The God who hadn’t rescued her family.

Why would He rescue her now?

Tom watched her from the shadows.

Gracie’s stupid dog hadn’t detected his scent. Good. And her little tantrum against her God provided a night of free entertainment. No nosy neighbors to report him. Few neighbors even home in the evening; they were too busy. Little ants running here and there with no purpose. Filling the days with useless striving.

Gracie’s philosophical musings bled into his thoughts. What if her God did help her find the answers she cried for? He certainly hadn’t kept her family from that awful crash.

And Steven Kessler was too wrapped up in saving the children of the world to care about poor Gracie. Too busy rescuing the world to care much about his little boy either. The one who taped pictures to Steven’s refrigerator of a cozy threesome. James. Steven. And Gracie.

Oh, yes. He’d expanded his nighttime prowling. Watched Steven some. A fairly boring waste of time.

He watched Gracie’s private investigator a little too. Those memories made him chuckle to himself. A PI being stalked by the criminal he’d been hired to catch.

Humorous.

Gracie went inside mumbling to her dog. Something about checking e-mail. This could be good. He’d have to retire early tonight and surf the web, preview Gracie’s e-mails.

Delete any from that insufferable do-gooder agent. Add those to the messages that had come from Justin Moore, PI extraordinaire. Deleted. Gone. Too bad people weren’t as easily disposable.

Pointing his shiny new SUV toward his townhome in Old Alexandria, he frowned. Back roads and traffic meant that Gracie had probably already read any e-mails he would have normally deleted.

Should have done that first before snooping in her back woods.

He’d remember that for next time.

Long minutes later, he flung his keys on the oak entry table. All around him deep blues, greens, and light wood furniture recreated his favorite place of escape. He glanced around the living room toward the picture window overlooking the mighty Potomac, down the slope from his back door. He unbuttoned his white dress shirt. No adoring wife gasped with appreciation. Like that could ever happen.

Turning his focus to the beloved pictures of lighthouses, he studied their majestic peaks surrounded by wild waters. Those hanging over his white fireplace had stormy skies to match the bubbling waters. And others, larger paintings in the dining area, had softer colors. More like the beaches where he’d entertained himself most of his adolescence.

His thoughts trailed off to a distant memory of his family noisily gathering food for a late afternoon picnic on the beach. Waves had crashed just beyond their beachfront home. He’d tasted the salt water as he’d fidgeted with a bag of sand toys, ready to build a huge castle. A whole day with his family; it would have been a great one. But the high-pitched ring of the phone had silenced the activity and turned the day upside down. The Federal Bureau of Investigation had a way of interrupting every family moment.

“Stupid memories.” He waved them away and moved to his computer in the spare bedroom-turned-office. Gracie should do the same—wave the past away and get on with life. Just like he’d do when the teacher’s quest finally ended.

Something he still scoured the Internet for ways to make happen.

He flipped on a desk light to view e-mails. Gracie had already downloaded all the interesting ones, it seemed. So he switched to work e-mail. Boring.

Growing restless, he closed the files and undressed in his bedroom. After slipping on black shorts, he reclined in the comfort of his favorite chair to ponder his options. Caesar, his black-and-gray striped tabby cat, rubbed against his leg.

“This townhome used to be a retreat for me, but there is no safe place, is there? And we could lose even this unless I find a good way to end Gracie’s search. And soon.” He reached down to stroke Caesar’s fur.

“I could scare her into running home to Mommy and Daddy, vicious letters threatening her safety. Of course the nightly news could do that too.” He chuckled. “But that only drives her back
to the scene of the crime. Closer to the truth. Away from my keeping.”

He shook his head.

“I could rile a few mob interests and point them toward Mr. Moore. They’d have him walking in cement boots before too long.”

Nah. That was old news anyway.

Caesar trotted off to his little scratching post.

An idea started to take shape. Medical sites full of information sprang to mind. Yes. His days of research would not prove useless. This was a good plan. A new quest for Gracie Lang.

The shrill ring of his bedroom telephone snapped him to attention. He picked up the cordless phone. Caller ID showed that it was from Out of Area. An international call, perhaps? He pressed the Talk button, but no one answered.

The silence puzzled him. Who would have his unlisted number?

“T
hey found a body.”

“I know.” For the second time tonight, Olivia’s shining blue eyes taunted Steven from her file photo. That was all her parents had now to remember her by Photos and possessions. No child to watch grow into adulthood.

He wanted to slam his front door into Michael Parker’s face. But no use being rude and making him wait outside. Especially with a nasty storm brewing. This failure wasn’t the rookie’s fault. “Come in, Michael. My father is en route. When he pulls in, we’ll head to the scene. Unless you want to go on ahead.”