MIND READER (37 page)

“I got your call, Parker.” Sandy studied his cigar. His
hand was trembling. “The man you left tied up in the house
is at Charity Hospital. Three broken ribs and a sprained
wrist.” He looked at Parker’s chin. “Our guys are on-scene
at the camp now.”

Caron frowned. This didn’t make sense. “What about the people we heard drive up?”

“I told you, honey. They never got out of the car.”
Parker narrowed his eyes, demanding Sandy tell Caron
he’d
been the “they” who hadn’t gotten out.

Sandy clamped his teeth around his cigar. “I’ve got to go.
I just wanted to let you know what we’re up against.”

Parker looked at Caron. She’d caught it, he realized.

“Keep us posted.” Parker had to bury his emotions deep
to keep a calm face and a civil voice. Anger boiled in his gut. Sandy wasn’t going to tell her, and Parker
couldn’t.
It
was bad enough that he hadn’t yet told her his own sins. He
couldn’t tell her about Sanders’s.

Parker glared at the man’s back, willing him to turn
around and face the music. He didn’t. He headed down the
hall, and stopped at the elevator. When he stepped inside
and the door closed behind him, Parker knew Sanders had
decided not to tell her. Not now, not ever.

And the proverbial knife slid in, right between Parker’s
shoulder blades. He had no choice.

“Caron?” he began uncertainly, staring at the floor.

“It’s okay, Parker. I know. It was Sandy.”

He looked up and something inside him died. Caron’s
eyes held the same betrayed look they had when she’d told
him about her father. “I, um, need some air.”

“I’m going with you.” He reached for her hand, but she
curled it to her chest and stepped back.

“No, Parker.” Her eyes were rimmed with red, and her
chin was quivering. “I’m better off alone.”

Her words slammed into him like a hard right. She was trying so hard not to cry. His heart felt as if it had been squeezed and hung out to dry. He couldn’t let her shut him
out. He couldn’t let her just walk away. The words rushed
unbidden out of his mouth. “I need you, Caron.”

She stopped, but she didn’t turn around. He went to her,
taking the longest three steps he’d taken in his life. “I’ve wanted to tell you so many times. But I couldn’t.”

Her eyes shone her doubt. He was holding back, and she
knew it. And for the thousandth time since he’d seen
Sanders leave the fishing camp, he cursed the man. Sanders would never give his confession to Caron. And Par
ker’s Caron would never hear.

The bleak look in her eyes, the ramrod stiffness in her
shoulders, proved that Caron had made up her mind. She’d
trusted a man for the last time.

God help him.

Caron swallowed the sob that was threatening her throat. She loved Parker so much, and still he was lying to her. He didn’t need her; he just didn’t want her alone with her fears.
Didn’t he think she’d know the difference?

He’d told her he needed her for the same reason that he’d
torched the shed. He wanted Misty to know that what had
happened to her couldn’t happen to her again. He wanted Caron to know that what had happened to her again had
happened for the last time.

“Caron, I wish I had the right words. I wish I could take
the hurt…”

He was sincere. And, touched by his concern, Caron leaned against the wall next to him and pressed her forehead against his arm. “I understand.” The strange thing was, she really did. He cared. He didn’t love her, but he
cared. She wanted love.

“Do you?” His eyes burned black with stormy emotions.

The shield hiding his thoughts melted away. He was torn,
afraid of hurting her, afraid of losing her. He
wasn’t
like
Sandy, like her father or like any of the others. He was go
ing to tell her the truth; she sensed it!

“Not now.” She pressed a fingertip over his lips. “Not here.” A hospital corridor was no place for soul-baring
confessions. They deserved privacy and uninterrupted time;
and they’d have it, just as soon as they wrapped up this
case. They needed to laugh together and make silly jokes, and to enjoy each other. When they’d had those things, the good that could come between two people who cared about each other, then it would be time to share their dreams and
desires…and their secrets.

“I don’t know how to thank you.”

Caron looked into the soft eyes she’d so often imaged and saw gratitude. Inexpressible gratitude.

Collin Phillips sat on Misty’s bed, cradling her in his arms, and his smile lit up his whole face. He didn’t look
homely anymore, Caron realized. His bulbous nose was still
red, but his long, lean face was too full of love for his
daughter to be anything but handsome.

He stroked Misty’s shoulder with a bony hand that bordered on gaunt and spoke to Caron and Parker. “I wish I
could tell you how much having Misty back means to me.
I—I—” Choking up, he paused, then smiled. “Thank you.”

Parker stepped forward. “We’d like a moment, Mr. Phillips.” Parker looked pointedly toward the hallway.

Phillips unfolded his lanky body, dropped a kiss on Misty’s forehead and followed Caron and Parker into the
hall.

“We have a few questions,” Parker said.

“So do I. Are you with the police?”

“No.” Caron ignored Parker’s grimace. This time she
was playing it straight. “I’m a psychic, Mr. Phillips. I imaged Misty. That’s how we knew she was in trouble.”

“I see.”

He didn’t. But he was a kind man and a grateful one, and
he wasn’t about to insult Misty’s rescuers. “When your daughter went missing, why didn’t you file a kidnapping
report?”

“I did!” Phillips wrinkled his nose and shoved his glasses
back on his face. “The kidnappers said they’d…kill—”
he stumbled over the word “—Misty if I went to the po
lice. But a man in my position knows the odds. Getting my daughter back unharmed was more likely with the police
than without them, so I went down to headquarters and talked to Detective Sanders. He took the report and said
he’d keep the record off the wire. I assumed that meant the
other officers would know, but that the information wouldn’t be available to outsiders.”

“When exactly was Misty kidnapped?” Caron said. A
sick feeling had her stomach queasy. Sandy
had
been into
this up to his cigar stub.

“On the fifteenth. We lunched at the park, and I left to
go back to work. The next thing I knew, I was getting a call
at the office telling me she’d been abducted.”

“Did they ask for a ransom?”

“Yes.”

Parker grimaced. “How much?”

“Five million.”

It fit. Caron’s heart knocked against her ribs. All the
pieces fit.

“Where’s your wife, Mr. Phillips?”

“I’m not sure, Mr. Simms.” Phillips’s face and neck
splotched red, and he lowered his gaze. “I haven’t seen her
for days. The pressure was too much. She said she had to
get away.” Bitterness threaded into his voice.

“When did she leave?”

“I’m not sure.” He gave Parker a sad smile. “The days
have been running together, you know? Tuesday, I think.”

The images that had whirled in Caron’s mind time and again returned. The park. The woman binding Misty’s
hands. The hatred…

“What’s your wife’s name, Mr. Phillips?”

He frowned and shoved at his glasses. “Vanessa.”

Caron looked at Parker, and at the same time he looked
at her. “I’ll call Sanders,” Parker said.

Caron frowned and looked at Phillips. “We know who
kidnapped your daughter.” Shoving open the door, she
went back into the room and over to Misty.

The child was still a pasty white, but her eyes were more
alert. She was getting stronger.

Parker came back, and he and Phillips stood behind her.
Caron edged up onto the bed. “Your mom took you to the
man, didn’t she, Misty?”

She looked past Caron’s shoulder to her father.

“Misty, look at me.” Caron touched her chin. The room
was quiet, the only sound the steady beeping of the heart
monitor connected to Misty’s chest. “You’ve got to tell us.”

Phillips stepped to Caron’s side and took his daughter’s hand. “I need to know, honey. Just tell the truth, okay?”

Her tiny face twisted in pain. “My bike wasn’t broken,
Daddy. Mom said my tire was flat, but it wasn’t. We
stopped behind the store. The man scared me. But Mom
said he was going to fix my bike, that I had to go with him.
I told her I didn’t want to, but she said he was a good
stranger. She made me go.”

His face a blind mask of pain, Collin looked down… and
saw the rope burns on Misty’s wrists. “She tied you up?”

Misty blinked, then blinked again. Tears splashed down
to her cheeks. “Mom didn’t mean to lie!” she cried on a
choking sob. “She didn’t mean to hurt me!”

Misty gasped and clutched her chest. And the intermit
tent beep of the heart monitor became a shrill, steady blast.

In the waiting room, the hours crept by. How many, Caron wasn’t sure; it seemed a lifetime. Parker and Collin Phillips were sitting together, talking quietly. Caron stood at the window, looking outside. They’d pushed Misty too
hard, forcing her to admit her mother’s wrongs. Why
hadn’t she sensed it? Why hadn’t she known that Misty couldn’t handle it? It was her fault. If Misty died, Caron was to blame. She’d made a mistake. Just as she had with
Sarah.

Two nurses all in white walked across the parking lot, laughing. A brown car screeched to a stop at the emergency entrance. A man got out and rushed to help his
pregnant wife inside. They were coming to have a baby. It
was a boy.

A palpable tension clouded the room, but suddenly it el
evated, thickened enough to slice. A second later, Caron heard footsteps behind her, stiffened, turned, and saw Dr. Z.

“Misty’s fever broke and her breathing is improving,” the doctor said, her eyes shining overly bright. “She’s go
ing to make it.”

Tears sprang to her eyes, and Caron ran into Parker’s
 
arms. “We weren’t too late.” Deep sobs rattled her chest.
 
”Oh, Parker, we weren’t too late”

Parker squeezed his eyes shut. How could he have
doubted her? How had he been so blinded by Harlan’s rage
and despair that he hadn’t seen her for the woman she was?

He forced his eyes open, refusing to run. He wasn’t hid
ing his feelings—not anymore. He wept openly, un
ashamed. “No, love.” His voice gruff, raw and ragged, he pressed his cheek to her shoulder. “We weren’t too late.”

“Take her home, Parker.” Dr. Z. examined Caron with
a motherly look. “You’re both exhausted, and there’s nothing more you can do here.”

“But I don’t want—” Caron began.

“To collapse on my floor, I hope.” Dr. Z. clucked her
tongue. “Your job is finished. You found Misty, and she’s
going to be fine. Her father is here, the guard is right out
side the door, and Detective Sanders will be coming back momentarily. He
did
want you to find her. She’s safe now.
Her needs have been met, Caron. Yours, however, have
not. You need rest.”

Parker agreed with a healthy nod and rubbed his two
days’ growth of beard. “While you’re at it, could you
mention something doctory here about her diet? The lady
lives on Butterfingers.”

“No candy.” She wagged a finger. “Now go home.”

“All right,” Caron muttered, primed to blister their ears for ganging up on her. But Misty was watching avidly. She
smiled at the girl, then gave the good doctor and her cat-
that-swallowed-the-canary sidekick a glare to let them know
they weren’t getting away with a thing.