Broken Angels (31 page)

“A couple of hours ago, give or take.”

“And you waited till now to call us? What the hell were you thinking?”

Indignation thinned Martin’s mouth. “I was busy looking for them.”

“Did you search the woods?”

“Yes. Several times.” Defeat no longer rearranged Martin’s features. Defiance now smoldered in his gaze. “There was no sign of them.”

As if her legs could no longer support her, Becca dropped into the couch, still clutching the baby. Will, who obviously didn’t appreciate the death-grip she had on him, complained and wrestled free.

“Then there’s only one thing to do.” Tears pooled in her eyes, but failed to flood her cheeks. “We need to call the police.”

Evening fell like a black cloak to cover the sky, and they were still no closer to locating the children. The authorities had spent the better part of the day scouring the area, but their efforts had turned up nothing. They’d promised to resume the search at first light, but that did little to comfort Rebecca. Noah and Kristen were out there, somewhere in the dark night—alone, frightened, maybe even hurt.

She pictured their sweet faces, and her gut clamped. She felt empty inside, as if someone had reached into her chest cavity and torn out her heart. Now all that was left in its place was a jagged wound that pulsed and throbbed with each breath she drew into her lungs. The need to find them, protect them, slashed through her. She’d thought she’d lost them before—when Kristen had gone to visit Voula and Noah had taken the canoe to the Seashore—but this was different. This was real.

The kids hadn’t just wandered off. If they had, they would have found them by now. Something was wrong. She felt it.

Her throat was swollen, thick with the tears she refused to shed. She wouldn’t cry for them. Crying would mean she’d given up, that she didn’t think she’d ever see them again.

Zach and Martin were still out searching. She was itching to join them, but she couldn’t. Someone had to stay at the house and watch over Will.

Sharp-toothed anxiety shredded her insides and left her all the more hollow. She should have known not to take happiness for granted. She’d forgotten how ephemeral it was.

An illusion.

Whenever she got a taste of it, it was snatched away.

She walked onto the porch and lowered her body onto the steps. Above her, stars sizzled, blind to the darkness that now enfolded her like a death shroud.

The impenetrable stillness only made her thoughts screech louder. The wound in her chest throbbed. These children had irrevocably changed her. She’d learned to hold them, to smile at them, but she’d failed to tell them she loved them. Now she might never get the chance.

In the distance she made out two blurry silhouettes. Seconds later, Zach and Martin cut through the shadows and approached her. Something cold and clammy tightened around her middle. They were alone.

“Still no sign of them,” Zach told her, his face a flat, unreadable mask. He was doing it again—hiding his emotions. Disappointment twined with sadness. The Iceberg was back.

Martin looked broken. Without a word, he heavily mounted the stairs and entered the house. Zach turned his back to her and stared at the unnaturally calm ocean. She could almost see the thoughts churning in his head.

“We’ll find them,” she reassured him in a gravelly voice she barely recognized.

His hand twitched, the only indication he’d heard her. “I knew I never should’ve left them with Martin.”

“You can’t possibly blame yourself for this.” But she knew he did. That was just the way he was made.

She stood and narrowed the distance between them, but refrained from touching him. Over the years, she’d learned to give him space when he was feeling this way. He needed room to beat himself up properly.

“I think maybe you were right all along,” he said. “Maybe we really
are
cursed.” She’d told him that once, weeks before their break-up.

She shook her head, even though he wasn’t looking at her. “I don’t believe that anymore. That was just my grief talking.” She closed her fingers around his arm, despite her better judgment. “We’re going to find them, Zach,” she said again because she needed to convince herself the words were true.

Muscles bunched beneath her fingers. Tension rippled through him, a sharp current of electricity that thrummed against her palm.

Please don’t give up
, she whispered silently.
Not this time.

The darkness seemed to deepen. It congealed around them as a cloud drifted across the nearly full moon. Without as much as a sigh, Zach pried his arm from her grasp and vanished into the house, leaving her with nothing but the wind to embrace her.

Never had dawn taken so long to come. Each dark hour had stretched into infinity. When the sun finally clawed its way out of the sea to part the gray curtains of mist that still hovered over the waves, Rebecca experienced an irrational sense of relief. None of them had slept that night except for Will. The penicillin had already kicked in, and, feeling better, the baby had finally succumbed to exhaustion.

Zach had lain in bed with his arm slung over his eyes, silent and unmoving, but she’d known he was every bit as conscious as she. He’d oozed tension from head to toe. Every inch of him was tight and hard, chiseled in stone.

She wanted to inch closer, to draw comfort from his solid body, but, afraid of invading the frosty barrier he’d erected around himself, she crawled out of bed and made her way downstairs instead.

She found Martin in the kitchen, inhaling a mug of coffee. He hadn’t bothered to shave. Stubble shadowed his cheeks. His hair stood out at strange angles and fell in wisps over his forehead. He wore the same clothes he’d worn yesterday—a white Polo over a pair of beige shorts. The shirt was wrinkled, the shorts creased, and that somehow made him look more human.

Rebecca couldn’t help the clutch of compassion that gripped her. Zach had every reason to blame Martin, but she could empathize with the man. She couldn’t begin to imagine how lousy he felt, knowing the kids went missing on his watch. The truth was, it could have happened to any one of them.

“Is there enough coffee for two?” she asked.

He jolted at the sound of her voice. “Yeah. I made a whole pot. I figured we’d need it today.”

She poured herself a healthy dose of the dark brew, then spiked it with a splash of milk.

“I never should’ve taken that call,” he told her.

She joined him at the table and took a hearty swallow, in desperate need of the caffeine boost.

“I cleared my schedule,” he insisted. “I wasn’t expecting to have to work. But then this client phoned me out of the blue and—”

“It’s okay, Martin. You don’t have to explain yourself to me. I’m not interested in blaming anyone. All I care about is finding Noah and Kristen.”

Pain radiated from her chest at the mention of their names. Their faces flashed before her eyes again. She’d once thought nothing could be more devastating than mourning the children she’d never have, but she’d been wrong. Those children had been nothing more than an idea in her head. Noah and Kristen were real. They had faces and souls and smiles that could melt ice cream on a winter’s day. And she missed them. Missed them with a fervor that burned straight to the marrow of her bones.

“Do you think we will?” he asked her.

“We have to.”

He reached across the table, covered her hand with his in an effort to give—or perhaps receive—comfort. “What if we don’t?”

Rebecca placed her other hand over his and squeezed. The coffee suddenly tasted unbearably bitter on her tongue. “I can’t go there, Martin. Not even in my head. If I do, I’ll never climb back out again.”

Martin’s gaze fell to their joined hands. The look on his face told her he understood. “Then I won’t, either.”

Zach felt like a wreck when he clambered out of bed that morning. His muscles were taut, his neck strained, and a vicious headache pounded behind his eyes. Inside him a firestorm raged, hot and insistent, incinerating everything it touched. He didn’t think it was possible to feel any worse…until he entered the kitchen and found Becca holding hands with Martin.

Fury ignited in his veins. The bastard had cost him his kids, and now he was making a move on his wife. Right there and then, he regretted not having beaten him to a pulp yesterday. His hands fisted at his sides, but he managed to roll his anger into a tight ball and swallow it. It left an acrid taste in his mouth, so he went and poured himself some coffee.

From the corner of his eye, he caught a flicker of movement. Becca had pulled her hand away from Martin’s. “How are you feeling?” she asked him.

“How do you think?” He didn’t mean to be short with her, but he was infinitely annoyed with everyone at the moment, his ex-wife included.

“Did you sleep at all?” she persisted.

“Sure. If you consider staring at the ceiling all night sleep.” He approached the table and crashed into the chair beside her. “Are the cops here yet?”

“No,” Martin rasped.

Zach directed a withering look his way. “Why the hell not? They said they’d be here at sunrise.”

Becca rubbed her eyes, distressed. “Give them a chance.”

Zach was about to tell her exactly what he thought of the cops’ efforts so far, when the doorbell rang.

Today they’d brought the dogs. Becca had gathered up some of the kids’ belongings, and a handful of German Shepherds now combed the surrounding woods, hoping to pick up the scent. Zach had tagged along because he couldn’t bear to hang around just twiddling his thumbs the whole damn day. He needed to do something, even if all he could do was follow the cops around and make a nuisance of himself.

So far, nothing had turned up. He wasn’t sure whether that was a bad sign or a good one. At least they hadn’t found their bodies, which meant they could still be alive. That hope was all he clung to now.

The hours stretched, endless threads of time that snaked toward another dusk. The hot sun beat down on them, harsh and unrelenting. Zach plowed ahead, so charred inside he felt nothing but a soft throb of emptiness beneath his ribs and a burning sensation in his gut. Fatigue clawed at him, but the adrenaline pulsing through his bloodstream kept it at bay. He couldn’t imagine ever sleeping again. Not until Noah and Kristen were found.

“I don’t think they’re out here,” Lieutenant Mason, the officer in charge, said.

“They have to be.” Zach’s pace matched the lieutenant’s. “Kids don’t just disappear. If they didn’t come this way, then they took to the sea. That would be pretty hard to do without a boat, unless…” He chased the thought from his brain. They couldn’t have drowned. Not both at once.

“The Coast Guard is checking things out at its end. Something’s bound to turn up.”

He wanted to believe the lieutenant, but the sizzling wound in his gut wouldn’t let him. It just grew bigger, rawer with each hour that passed. “Tell me the truth,” he said to the other man. “What are the chances we’ll find them alive?”

Lieutenant Mason’s somber expression said it all.

“That’s what I thought.” The wound turned gangrenous. Zach knit his brows against the pain. Straightening his back, he forged ahead, trekking between the shivering trees.

A cacophony of barks broke the eerie silence. The dogs sniffed at the ground, mere feet before the woods ended and another stretch of beach began. Lieutenant Mason sped ahead, with Zach close on his heels.

“Stay back,” the officer warned him, then crouched to study the ground.

“What is it? What did they find?”

“Footprints. Two sets from the looks of it. Judging from the sizes, they could very well belong to your kids.” The dogs sprinted out of the woods and up a steep incline toward a house. Zach and the cops quickly followed.

The back door was unlocked, but Lieutenant Mason didn’t enter. Instead, he whipped out his cell phone. “I need a search warrant for—” He turned to one of his detectives. “Get me the address to this place.”

“You gotta be kidding me.” Zach’s frustration bubbled and overflowed. “My kids could be in there and you wanna wait for a search warrant—”

Lieutenant Mason raised his index finger to silence him. The detective returned and handed him a piece of paper with the address, and he relayed the information to whomever he was talking to on the phone. “That’s right. On Ministers Lane. And make it quick.”

“This is bullshit.”

Mason skewered him with a pointed stare. “I have to do things by the book. This is private property. Unless I actually hear someone scream for help, I can’t enter without a warrant.”

“Yeah, well I can.” Shoving his way past the lieutenant, Zach bulleted into the house. “Noah, Kristen, you in here?”

The place was deserted. No furniture filled the hollow spaces, no frames decorated the walls and a thin carpet of dust blanketed the floors. Still, maybe the kids had come here to play, locked themselves in a room…

Lieutenant Mason and his crew reluctantly trailed behind him, weapons raised. “You’re compromising the investigation,” Mason accused. “Go back outside.”

“You can forget about it.” He raced to the foot of the stairs. “Noah, Kristen! Answer me.” He was about to sprint upstairs, when two detectives grabbed him and hauled his ass outside.

The lieutenant’s expression was lethal. “Don’t make me arrest you.”

“You honestly expect me to sit around like a goddamned idiot waiting for some stupid piece of paper when my kids could be inside that house hurt or worse?”

“Yes.” Mason’s tone didn’t falter. “That’s exactly what I expect.”

She sat at the edge of the shore, her arms wrapped around her waist, staring at the whitecaps as if they held the answer she so desperately sought. A few feet back, Will rolled in the sand, his mood greatly improved now that his ear no longer tortured him.

Rebecca wasn’t nearly as lucky. A million thoughts plagued her, none the least bit comforting. In her hand she clutched Kristen’s Ventolin. She’d found it in the children’s room that morning, which had only added to the questions, the worry.

What if Kristen had another attack? What if it was already too late?

She tamped down the anxiety, wiped the disturbing thoughts from her mind. She couldn’t think this way. She had to believe the kids would be fine. Otherwise her heart would fracture into a million fragments of grief, and she’d fall apart. What good would she be to them then? This time, she had to stay strong. Retreating into self-indulgent misery wasn’t an option.