B008DKAYYQ EBOK (23 page)

But James couldn’t imagine his life without them. What would he do? Where would he go?

He was too selfish to walk away, too frightened of what his life would be like.
 

Empty.
 

Intolerably
empty.

He’d have no reason to live, and reasons to live were all that had gotten him through prison. And those reasons were Austin and Bailey.

He knew what he had to do. It would change everything. He would probably lose custody of Austin again, but he would still be able to see him. There really was no alternative.

He had to go to the feds.

Chapter 31

As the statuesque redhead in the tailored navy suit hugged Cole tight, Bailey had to look away. The intense wave of the jealousy stunned her.
 

Before she could do much more than wonder where the hell it had come from, Cole turned to her. “Bailey Chase, this is FBI Special Agent Kathleen Quinn.”

The woman extended a manicured hand, her dark brown eyes friendly. “Hello, Bailey. Nice to meet you.”

Bailey plastered a pleasant expression on her face. “Nice to meet you, too.” As they shook hands, she realized she’d seen this woman before. Where? Then she remembered the photos on Cole’s wall, his arm casually looped over her shoulders in the photo that also contained Daniel.

“Kathleen and I went to college together,” Cole said.

Kathleen gave a low, husky laugh. “That’s not all we did.”

Bailey felt as though a thirty-pound cat had just plopped down on her chest. Oh, God, she shouldn’t be feeling this way. Not about Cole. He was nosy. And pushy. And maddening. And
way
too much work.

Kathleen turned eyes that sparkled back to him. “Let’s go to my office.”

As the agent led the way, Bailey fell in step beside Cole, the envelope of negatives and the enlarged photo from Austin’s camera clasped in one hand. She noticed that Cole’s gaze rested ever-so-briefly on the FBI agent’s backside before he glanced sideways at her and smiled.
 

She told herself he could check out any butt he wanted to. She’d told him to bug off.
And
she wasn’t interested.
 

Kathleen escorted them into a tiny office with sparse furnishings and a small window, its view blocked by a leafy green bush. The air was warm and close, and got closer still when Kathleen shut the door and gestured at the two no-nonsense chairs facing the desk.
 

“Have a seat,” she said as she settled onto the creaky wooden chair behind the gray metal desk.
 

With her long, curling hair, classically feminine features, expert makeup, snug-fitting skirt and jacket, she seemed out of place in the drab, airless office. She looked more like an actress who played an FBI agent on TV than an actual agent.
 

“Are those the photos?” Kathleen asked.

Bailey blinked and hoped to hell she hadn’t been staring … or scowling. “Yes.” She handed over the envelope. “I appreciate you taking the time to see us on such short notice.”

Kathleen smiled at Cole. “That’s what friends are for. Right, Cole?”
 

Did the woman have a twitch in her eye or had she just winked at him?
 

Bailey forced herself to sit back and relax her shoulders, determined to be an adult. Adults didn’t lunge across desks and yank out the perfect hair of the competition. Besides, Kathleen Quinn was
not
the competition, because there was no contest.
 

Bailey rubbed her forehead in frustration. What the hell was
wrong
with her?

Kathleen eased the enlarged photo out of the envelope, her forehead furrowing as she studied it.
 

Cole walked around the desk to stand beside her so he could see the photo, too. “The two officers are recognizable,” he said. “That will make it easy to ID them. The other guy, though, could be tough.”

Kathleen nodded. “Once we ID the officers, we can get them to give us a name.” She ran her finger over the date stamp in the corner of the photo. “Is this correct?”

“Yes,” Bailey said.
 

Cole gave her an impressed look. “I’m surprised you even set the time on the camera.”

She shrugged. “It was easy enough.”

“Yeah, but you said the camera was sitting in a drawer. You must have had to replace the batteries first. Most people wouldn’t have bothered since the plan was to give it to a six-year-old.”

He made her sound like such an anal-retentive loser. The perfect foil for his beautiful, willowy former lover. “I like to have accurate records of when photos are taken.” Damn it, she sounded so prim.

Cole grinned at Kathleen. “She’s efficient,” he said, as if bragging about his prized pooch’s ability to do tricks.
 

Bailey wouldn’t have minded fetching him a stick of lighted dynamite. Mentally shaking her head, she tried to chill. Such hostility was unlike her. Ever. But, then, she’d never felt such conflicting emotions over a man. Her relationship with Daniel had ended quickly and violently. She’d had no time for conflicting emotions.

But here she was now, conflicted over Cole Goodman. Hot for him one minute, exasperated the next, and touched by how sweet he was the one after that. Damn, did that mean she was falling for him?
 

Kathleen fished a pen and a legal pad out of her desk. “Why don’t we start with where the photo was taken and what’s happened since?”

* * *

Cole rubbed the back of his neck. They’d been in Kathleen’s stuffy office for two hours now, and at least one drop of sweat had trickled down his back. He’d ducked out once to ask if one of Kathleen’s colleagues could check out the black Town Car that had followed them from the newspaper. The agent quickly got an ID on the car’s owner and went out to chat with the driver while Kathleen grilled Bailey.
 

Cole had to hand it to Bailey. She had not wilted from the heat or the unending questions. She answered each query thoroughly and without hesitation.

He was especially impressed when she didn’t try to hide what the attacker at A.J.’s had said about James. It was the first time he’d heard about it, but at least she’d told Kathleen.
 

“What does the reference to your brother mean to you?” Kathleen asked.

Bailey shrugged. “I really don’t know.”
 

“How about you just throw out some ideas?”
 

Bailey shifted, obviously reluctant.

“You’re not going to convict him of anything he’s not guilty of,” Cole said.

Bailey didn’t look at him. In fact, she hadn’t even glanced at him since they had settled in Kathleen’s office. Apparently, she held a grudge. And maybe he couldn’t blame her. He never should have treated her past like a news story. Jesus, why did she make him act like such a jerk?

“My brother has had trouble before,” Bailey finally said.
 

The strain in her voice, as if she’d had to force the words out, made Cole’s stomach clutch.
 

Kathleen consulted her notes. “You said that in addition to manslaughter he was also convicted of driving under the influence at the time of the accident that killed your father. Does he have a drug problem?”

“Not anymore.”

“Are you sure?” Kathleen asked.

Cole watched Bailey’s profile as she swallowed. Her hesitation spoke volumes.

Kathleen could read between the lines, too. “What about money problems?”

“If he needed cash, he would ask for it,” Bailey said.

“From you?”

“Yes, or a family friend.”

“Do you know any of your brother’s friends well?” Kathleen asked.

“Since he got out of prison, he’s devoted himself to being a good father and preparing for a new job. I don’t know of anyone he socializes with.”

“You said that while James was in prison, you had custody of,” Kathleen checked her notes, “Austin.”

“Yes. After James was released, we shared custody for a while. Last month, the judge determined James could have full custody of Austin on a trial basis, with regular check-ins from social services. If everything goes well, the custody will be—” Her voice wobbled, and she paused a beat. “It will be permanent.”

That break in her voice had Cole massaging the knot at the nape of his neck again as pieces began to fall into place. Austin had mentioned that he’d lived with Bailey while his father “went away for a while.” She had virtually raised him, been a mother to him. And then when James had been released, she’d had to give the child back. He couldn’t imagine what that had been like for her … or what it was like now, watching her brother struggle and knowing the fallout could harm her beloved nephew. The need—and inability—to whisk the boy away to safety, to stability, had to be eating her up inside.

“I still have Austin with me quite a bit,” Bailey added.
 

“What does James do then?” Kathleen asked.

“Mostly, he’s had classes at the community college. When he wasn’t going to school, he’d hang out with Austin and me. It was nice to have him around, nice to see how close he was getting to his son.”

“Past tense?” Kathleen asked.

Bailey sighed. “He hasn’t spent as much time with us in the past month.”

“What does he do instead? Where does he go?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t ask?” Kathleen asked, surprised.

“I’m not his mother.”

“But surely you’ve expressed curiosity about the change in behavior.”

“I … I …” Bailey looked down at the hands tangled in her lap. “He’s accused me of watching him too closely. He thinks I’m waiting to attack if he screws up. So I don’t ask.” She rubbed at her temple. “Maybe I should have.”

Cole watched Kathleen scribble a note, then study it as she tapped her pen against the legal pad. After what seemed like a full minute, she looked up. “Anything else?”

Bailey met the other woman’s eyes. “Whatever’s going on here, James isn’t behind it. He … he might be involved in some indirect way, but he wouldn’t intentionally do anything that would endanger Austin or me.”

Kathleen nodded as she rose. “We’ll check in with the police department on the photograph and see where that takes us. And I’ll have our tech guys go over the negatives to see if there’s anything there you might have missed.”

“What about protection?” Cole asked.

“I can arrange for a safe house—”

“That’s not necessary,” Bailey cut in. “I can stay where I stayed last night. I’ll be safe there.”

“How can you be sure?” Cole asked. He wanted to insist that she stay with him, but he couldn’t think of a legitimate reason.
I want to kiss the hell out of you again and much, much more
probably wouldn’t be the most convincing argument.
 

She met his gaze for the first time in two hours, and her eyes were cool. “I doubt an FBI safe house has the state-of-the-art security that my uncle’s home has.”

Kathleen picked up her pen. “Why don’t you give me a phone number and address so I know where to reach you when I know something?”

Bailey rattled off Payne Kincaid’s information, and Cole registered that not only was her uncle the richest man in Kendall Falls, but he also owned the Town Car that had been following them. Protection, he realized, and felt a measure of relief. So he wasn’t the only one worried about what was going on. He liked Bailey’s Uncle Payne already.

Kathleen handed Bailey her business card. “Feel free to call me to check in or if you think of anything else. I’m sure we’ll know something quickly on the photo so we can decide where to go from here.”

As Cole opened the door for Bailey, Kathleen said, “Give me a call sometime, Cole. We’ll do dinner. We can revisit old times.”

When he returned her grin and wink, he caught a glimpse of Bailey’s body going rigid.
 

In the parking lot, she walked several paces ahead of him, which actually kind of pleased him. Maybe he was getting somewhere with her after all.
 

“Hey, where’s the fire?” he asked.

She gestured at the black Town Car parked several spaces from his. “That’s my ride.”

He caught her arm. “Can you just wait a minute?”

She stopped, and he gave her points for not jerking away when he drew her behind his SUV so they wouldn’t be in plain view of the Town Car’s driver.
 

She crossed her arms impatiently. “I have a photo assignment in half an hour, Goodman.”

Goodman. So they were back to that. She wouldn’t look him in the face, either. Her green eyes, dark with an emotion he couldn’t identify remained fixed on something over his right shoulder. He’d hoped for jealousy, but it looked more like anger. He forced himself to put a lock on the desire to haul her up to her toes for a kiss that would knock the breath out of her. He wanted desperately to feel that rush of heat again. He wanted to feel it again and again. More important, he wanted
her
to feel it. Then there would be no way in hell she could push him away.