Lullabies and Lies (3 page)

Sunny noticed his slight accent. He’d grown up in the South.

“I’m here because I’ve worked a number of missing child cases.”

A shadow crossed his face as he spoke. Her investigator’s instinct kicked in. He didn’t want to be here. Why?

“I see.” She held out her hand. “I’m Sunny Loveless. But then you know that, don’t you, Agent Stone?”

Griff lowered his gaze to Sunny Loveless’s outstretched hand, and accepted her intense scrutiny. Families of abducted children were initially wary of law enforcement, especially if they’d received a warning from the kidnappers.

For some reason, he was reluctant to touch her. Just seeing her straight slender silhouette, haloed by the faint
light from the dingy window, had been enough to slam him in his solar plexus. It was always difficult to meet the family of a missing child for the first time. This time, maybe because he was back in Nashville, the intensity of his reaction surprised him.

But he didn’t want to be rude so he took her hand. Her trembling fingers telegraphed how hard she was working to stay in control. After a brief but surprisingly strong grasp, she withdrew.

His hand tingled, as if she’d left a part of herself on him. He knew she’d taken something of him with her. But then each family he worked with took something from him, and gave him something back.

“I’m very sorry about your daughter, Ms. Loveless,” he said politely, studying her. She was dressed for business in tailored black pants, high-heeled shoes and a white sleeveless top with a long row of buttons down the front. Her frightening ordeal had certainly left its marks. The palm that had touched his was scraped. Red scratches ran up the left side of her face to her temple, where a bruise wasn’t quite covered by her hair. Her eyelids were red-rimmed, and below the angry scratches the creamy perfection of her skin was marred by tear-chapped cheeks. On her left shoulder, a flesh-colored bandage strip peeked out from under the white top.

When he finally met her gaze, he ran smack into green eyes that reflected a dull anguish and a desperate hope he knew all too well.

She immediately turned her attention to the lieutenant. “Do you have any news?” she asked Carver.

“We’ve talked to several of your former clients. Just like you said, they all seem satisfied with your work.”

“What about the break-in, the odd phone calls?”

“Ms. Loveless, I have apologized that the burglary of your case files was not given the attention it should have been back when it happened. But we’re on it now, checking alibis in case there’s a link between the burglary and your daughter’s abduction.”

“Any more information from trace evidence?”

Carver shook his head. “CSU didn’t find much. Your clothes had a few dark blue wool fibers. We figure they came from the blanket. Nothing else. The rain pretty much destroyed any evidence at the crime scene.”

Pretty much
was an understatement. Griff had already gone over the meager evidence with Carver earlier this morning. According to the Crime Scene Unit, the parking lot and Ms. Loveless’s car had been washed clean. He’d asked them to go over both one more time.

He cleared his throat. “Why don’t we sit down,” he suggested, touching the back of a wooden chair in invitation.

When she hesitated, he backed away a step and took a seat himself, then nodded at Lieutenant Carver.

Carver got the message. “I’ll be at my desk if you need me for anything.” He opened the door and lifted his hand to touch an invisible hat brim. “Ms. Loveless.”

She nodded stiffly. “Thank you, Lieutenant.”

When the door swung shut behind him, she crossed her arms and looked down at Griff, her emerald eyes bright. “What can you do for me that the police can’t, Agent Stone?”

A reluctant admiration eased the knot in Griff’s stomach as he leaned back in his chair. Taking a good look at her, he gauged her by the system he’d invented to help him gain the trust of distraught parents.

She was doing her best to appear tough, in control. That didn’t surprise him.

Since she was a private investigator of sorts, he’d expected her to be demanding—wanting more effort, minute-by-minute reports, faster results. But he didn’t want to be too quick to judge by outward appearances. They could lead to the wrong conclusion.

Carver had said she was
strung tighter than a well-tuned banjo.
It was a good description. Most people would think, given the circumstances, she was holding up remarkably well.

But Griff already knew it was an act. He recognized the hollow fear that emanated from her like a scent. The fear that she would never see her daughter again.

She was barely holding herself together. His heart squeezed in compassion. He immediately quashed the unwanted emotion and called on the careful balance of distance and concern that worked for him. Becoming too emotionally involved would cloud his thinking.

“I can help you, Ms. Loveless. But to do that, I need to hear your account of what happened.”

“You have my account in the police report. There’s no need to waste time repeating it.”

“I thought you were a private investigator.”

“I am.” Her delicately arched brows knit together in a tight frown.

“Then you know that having the person go over events several times allows new memories to surface.”

“I know that it’s a tried-and-true tactic to catch people in a lie.”

Griff almost smiled. “Does that bother you?”

“No.”

She answered too quickly. Griff glanced at her folded arms. Her knuckles were white where her hands squeezed her upper arms.

Body language always told the truth. Ms. Loveless was definitely hiding something.

He let his mouth stretch in a grim half smile. “Good. That should make it easy then, because I like to ask my own questions, face-to-face.”

Sunny bit back the urge to snap at him and pressed her lips together instead. She didn’t like Griffin Stone. He was like his name. Cold. Hard. Unyielding.

When their gazes had first collided, she’d noticed a hint of sadness and empathy in his dark eyes, as if he knew her pain. But nothing marred his sculpted features now, except a slight frown and a shrewd curiosity that worried her.

His knowing gaze scrutinized everything about her, from her stance to the way her folded arms pushed up against her breasts.

Suddenly self-conscious, she tried to relax her arms by her sides, but her hands shook. So she sat and clasped them in her lap.

She dreaded reliving that night of hell. Dreaded having to keep her story straight.
Again.

“Okay,” she sighed. “Ask your questions. But could you please hurry? This is a waste of time you could be using to find my daughter.”

Her daughter.
The words still thrilled her, even as they tore at her heart. She’d always wanted to adopt a baby, to pay forward the boundless love her adoptive parents had given to her. Emily had changed her life in ways she hadn’t even imagined.

Now her baby was in the hands of a stranger. Sunny
had promised Emily she’d keep her safe, and she hadn’t. Her vision clouded.

“Tell me about the attack. Start when you got to your car.”

Sunny closed her burning eyes. “Do we have to do this right now? Emily is out there—”

“Trust me. It’s not a waste of time.”

She heard the sympathy and assurance in his voice, but she also heard a steely determination. Nothing would stop this man.

Certainly not the lies of a terrified mother with secrets to hide.

She blinked and focused on her hands, because she couldn’t meet his steady gaze. She was afraid his sharp dark eyes would see past her lies. She couldn’t take that chance. He was there to uncover every shred of evidence. She couldn’t trust him. She didn’t dare.

“It was pouring rain. I threw the groceries into the backseat, then—” She halted as the door to the interrogation room opened.

A young man set two cups on the table, and tossed some packets of sugar and a couple of stirrers down beside them.

“The lieutenant said you might want coffee,” he commented over his shoulder as he left.

Griff took one of the cups and pushed the other one toward her.

“Sugar?”

Caught up in the memory of those terrible few minutes when Emily was kidnapped, Sunny shook her head. Her stomach clenched. She wrapped her fingers around the warm cup and stared into the coffee’s muddy depths.

“Go on.” The agent’s soft voice compelled her.

“It was still raining when I got Emily’s carrier fastened into the safety seat. We were both soaked. As I straightened, someone threw a blanket over my head and kicked my legs out from under me. I fell on my hands and knees. He pushed me down and slammed my head into the asphalt until I couldn’t move.”

She turned the cup with shaking fingers, and watched the dark liquid swirl. “As soon as I could pull myself up, I reached into the backseat for Emily—”

She couldn’t go on. The horror that had enveloped her soul at the sight of the empty carrier still took her breath away.

“What happened to the blanket?”

“What?” Momentarily startled, she looked up at him. “I guess he took it with him. Maybe he wrapped—” Her breath caught. Had he wrapped Emily in that wet, smelly blanket?

“You didn’t see the kidnapper?”

She shook her head. At least that was true. “I should have been faster, stronger.”

The agent didn’t respond. The fact that he was all business was a relief. She’d had all she could take of trite, well-intentioned but meaningless reassurances.

“Are you sure it was a man?” he asked.

“No. The person was not big. I suppose it could have been a woman. His—” She stopped. She’d almost said
his voice.
She hadn’t told anyone that the kidnapper had spoken to her.

As if he’d read her mind, Agent Stone asked, “Did he say anything?”

Sunny swallowed, trying to block out the echo of the
ominous whisper in her ears.
Chew on this, Loveless.
She shook her head.

“Okay. What happened next?”

“I crawled around, looking under the car, and—and all around. I thought maybe—” she choked on a wry laugh “—maybe the carrier had slipped off the seat. Maybe Emily had somehow fallen. Maybe…”

Suddenly, vividly, the taste of wet paper and leather flooded her mouth and the memory of kneeling there in the backseat of her car, clawing the note from her cheek, reading its ominous contents, overwhelmed her.

She’d stuffed it into the pocket of her jeans as the grocery clerk rushed up. She couldn’t tell anyone about the note. The kidnapper knew her name. He’d threatened to kill Emily.

“Ms. Loveless, I know this is difficult, but I promise you, it will help.”

She didn’t look at the agent. She had to push the grief back, so she could concentrate on her story.

She patted her cheeks, trying to mask the truth, trying to look innocent under the sharp eyes of the FBI agent, acutely aware of the note burning through her pocket to her skin.

The kidnapper was deviously clever. By not giving her any hint of who he was, he’d left Sunny with nothing to gain by telling the police about the note—and everything, her child’s life—to lose.

Tell the police anything about me—

Who?
The question had been screaming through her mind for the past two days.

“Ms. Loveless, are you all right?”

She blinked. “Yes. I—I’m fine.”

“You told the police you couldn’t give them a description.”

She met his unreadable gaze. “You’ve read the police report. You know that’s not what I said.” Irritation sharpened her senses. Was he trying to draw her out of the horrible trap of her memories? Or was he hoping to confuse her, to catch her in a lie?

She doubled her hands into fists. “I described the person as medium height, slight build, with a hooded jacket, dark pants and shoes and leather gloves.”

“Leather gloves? You didn’t mention that before.”

Sunny opened her mouth, then closed it. She’d almost said too much. She’d almost told Agent Stone that she’d tasted the leather when the kidnapper had stuffed the note into her mouth.

She shrugged. “Gloves. They smelled like wet leather.”

He jotted something in a small spiral pad. “But you couldn’t make out any features or distinguishing marks?”

Sunny interlaced her fingers on the tabletop, using all her strength to appear honest and innocent as cold terror enveloped her like the embrace of a ghost.

How long could she fool this self-described expert in missing children? He was asking all the right questions. It was as if he knew.

She
had
noticed a distinguishing feature. Or at least she thought she had.

If she was right, it could be a key to the kidnapper’s identity. And if the kidnapper found out Sunny had talked, he would kill Emily.

She kept her eyes on her fingertips. “No. Nothing,” she lied. “I couldn’t see. The rain was a deluge.”

“What did you do then?”

“The store clerk called the police. She stayed with me until the police got there.”

The memory of those endless hours and the detective’s unrelenting questions sent a shudder through her.

Agent Stone’s eyes narrowed, and Sunny’s senses immediately went on full alert. She had to stay composed.

“I was soaked,” she said lamely.

She could read his mind. He knew she was hiding something. If she were sitting on his side of the table, she’d be thinking the same thing.

He’d probably sat across from a distraught mother or father dozens of times. How many desperate parents had lied to him to protect their children?

Had he already seen through her? She shifted in her seat and the note in her pocket crackled—or was it her guilty imagination?

His eyes never left her face. “You haven’t heard anything from the kidnapper? No phone calls? No notes?”

“I’ve already been through all this,” she countered, hearing the tension in her voice. “Why aren’t you out there looking for my baby instead of wasting time asking me questions I’ve already answered?”

“I told you. I need to hear your answers firsthand.”