Starting Over (Treading Water Trilogy) (40 page)

“I did a little too much,” he said, filling her in on how Monroe found Mike and Daphne.

“You can’t blame yourself. You were trying to help them.” She held him for a long time. “Are you hungry, love?” She reached up to smooth the damp hair off his forehead.

He nodded. “Where is everyone?”

“Da, Dec, Aidan, and Clare are outside. Colin and Tommy had to go to work for a while. Meredith and Jessica went home to get changed, and Erin’s at Tommy’s mother’s house checking on the kids. Is that everyone?”

“I think so.” Everyone was accounted for except the two people he needed most.

Colleen put a steaming plate of bacon and eggs down in front of him. “Coffee?”

He nodded. “Thanks.” The food tasted good, but it was a struggle to get it past the lump that had taken up residence in his throat at the sight of his face on the Internet.
I may as well have given them directions to my house
, he thought, wishing there was something he could smash.

When his cell phone rang, Brandon lunged from his seat to grab it off the counter.

“Brandon.” She was weak, and her voice was strained, but it was Daphne.

He sat down hard in the kitchen chair. “Oh, God, Daph, are you all right?”

“
They have her!
They took my baby.”

“Honey, where are you?” He was so weak with relief he could barely speak.

“In a motel in Topeka,” she whispered. “They gave me something that knocked me out. They took her and left me here.”

Each word seemed to sap her energy.

“I kept trying to wake up, but they’d give me another shot, and I couldn’t…” Her sobs stole her voice. “I tried, Brandon. I tried to fight them, but they had guns.”

He swallowed hard and swiped at the tears on his face. “It’s okay, honey. Can you tell me exactly where you are? I’ll get you some help right away, and I’ll be on a plane as fast as I can.”

“Hold on. The address is on the phone.” She gave him the name and address of the motel. “It was her, Brandon. Eleanor’s the one who’s been chasing me for years, not him.”

Brandon gasped as he walked outside to pass along her location to the cops. “How do you know?”

She took a deep breath to summon the energy to continue. “I heard them when they thought I was knocked out. They were talking about the old lady this, the old lady that. We don’t want to piss off the old lady.”

“That’s why the pictures didn’t work. I couldn’t figure out why he’d risk the campaign by pulling this now.”

“He probably never showed them to her. But she’s the one behind this whole thing. She has been from the beginning.”

“That’s good information, baby. That’ll help the FBI find Mike.”

“What if we don’t find her?” she asked, weeping again. “What’ll we do?”

“We’ll find her. I was so afraid when you didn’t call…”

“How long has it been? I have no idea how long I’ve been here.”

“Almost two days. I was terrified they’d killed you to get you out of their way.”

“I think I lost the baby,” she said, hiccupping with sobs.

“
No
,” he wailed. “No.”

“There’s blood all over me, and I had terrible pain.”

The loss hurt all the way down to his bones, but Brandon struggled to stay focused on what she needed. “They’re sending an ambulance to you, honey. Aidan’s had a plane and crew on alert in case you called, so I’ll be there in a couple of hours. I love you so much.”

“I love you, too. Hurry, Brandon. I need you.”

Chapter 36, Day 172

His brothers insisted on coming with him to Kansas, and they piled into Daphne’s SUV for the ride to Hyannis, where Aidan had leased the plane. They picked up Colin at the office and hit the road.

“Are we going to be able to fly in this?” Colin asked, casting an eye at the pea-soup fog that was a staple of Cape Cod summers.

“Worst case, it should burn off in an hour or two,” Declan said from the driver’s seat.

Brandon groaned at the thought of a delay. Since it wasn’t a beach day, they were sharing the busy road with cyclists, runners, and couples pushing baby strollers. Declan sped around a rotary and cut off two angry motorists in his haste.

What should have been a forty-five-minute ride took nearly ninety minutes as they fought the summertime congestion.

Distressed to discover the fog was worse in Hyannis than it had been in Chatham, Brandon moaned.

At the airport, Aidan walked across the terminal to consult with the pilot he’d hired.

Watching the pilot shake his head, Brandon’s stomach fell.

“The airport’s closed,” Aidan said when he came back to where his brothers were waiting. “They had some sort of incident on the runway. It’ll be an hour or two.”

“Can we go to Boston?” Brandon asked desperately.

“In this traffic, by the time we get there, this airport will be open,” Colin said.

“This is
unfuckingbelievable
,” Brandon moaned.

Five interminable hours later, a cab deposited them at St. Francis Hospital in Topeka.

Brandon raced inside and up to the fourth floor, where he’d been told Daphne was after having been admitted. He burst into her room and suppressed a gasp when he found her asleep, pale as a ghost, and dwarfed by the big hospital bed. It didn’t matter how pale she was, though. She was alive, and that was all that mattered.

Wiping away tears, he reached for the hand that wasn’t attached to a monitor.

When he pressed his lips to the palm of her hand, she stirred. “Brandon?”

“I’m here, baby,” he whispered. “I’m sorry it took so long.”

She held out her arms to him, and he crawled onto the bed to hold her.

“God, I thought I’d never see you again.” Blinded by tears, he buried his face in her hair. “I’ve never been more afraid in my life.”

“Have they found Mike?”

“Not yet. They’ve searched the Monroe’s house twice but didn’t find her. I talked to the agent in charge an hour ago, and based on what you overheard, they’re bringing Eleanor in for questioning. They want to talk to you, too, when you’re up to it.”

“I’ll do it now. Today. Whatever I have to do to get Mike back.”

“Let me just hold you for another minute, and then I’ll call him.”

“You look so tired, hon.” She caressed his face. “You didn’t drink, did you?”

“No. I wanted to, though. I came close last night, but Colin stopped me, thank God.”

She combed her fingers through his hair. “Oh, Brandon.”

“It’s all my fault, Daph. I should’ve listened to you and left it alone. I led them right to you.”

“
Shhh
,” she said with her fingers to his lips. “This would’ve happened eventually. She wouldn’t have rested until she got her hands on Mike.”

“Are you okay? What did the doctors say?”

“I lost the baby,” she whispered. “Whatever they gave me killed our baby.”

Red-hot rage blasted through him, but he showed her none of it. Rather he just held her closer. “She won’t get away with this. I don’t care who she is.”

“I wanted it so much,” she said, weeping into his shirt.

“So did I, honey. But we’ll have others—lots and lots of them. We’re going to find Mike, go home, get married, and have a ton of kids.”

“Promise?”

“I promise, and you know I always keep my promises.” He leaned in to kiss her and was surprised by the burst of passion that hit them the moment their lips met. “I love you so much. I couldn’t have lived without you.”

“I won’t be able to live without Mike. We have to find her.”

“We will. I promise.”

After two days of intense searching by law enforcement officials they were no closer to finding her. When Daphne was released from the hospital, Brandon flew her to her parents’ home in California since the FBI was certain Mike would be found somewhere in the Monroe’s home state. He tried to send his brothers home, especially Colin, whose wedding was just a week away, but they refused to leave until Mike was located. They holed up in a Sausalito hotel to be close to Brandon and Daphne.

She was able to give detailed descriptions of her abductors, but the snippets of their conversation she recalled weren’t enough for the FBI to arrest Eleanor, who was questioned and released without giving any useful information.

Brandon finally convinced his brothers to go home when it appeared there wasn’t going to be a quick end to the case. They stopped by Daphne’s parents’ house to say good-bye before they left on a commercial flight to Boston. Aidan insisted on leaving the chartered plane in case Brandon needed it.

“We’ll be home with Mike in time for the wedding,” Brandon said to Colin with more confidence than he felt. “But if we’re not, I want you to focus on Meredith and your big day, do you hear me?”

Colin looked away from his brother as he nodded. “I wish there was something we could do.”

“I know, but there isn’t. So go home and get ready for your wedding. I’ll be okay.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m positive. Thank you for what you did for me that night. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking…”

“You weren’t thinking. You were terrified.”

“I’m so glad you were there to stop me, Col.”

“So am I.”

Brandon hugged him. “Don’t let this ruin your wedding, please? Mike would hate that.”

Colin blinked back tears and nodded.

“Where’s the best man?” Brandon called.

“Right here,” Declan said.

“He’s all yours.” Brandon shook hands with both of them. “Thanks for everything, you guys.”

“We’ll be praying for you, Brand, and for Mike,” Dec said, hugging his brother. The two of them walked away and left Aidan to say good-bye.

“You know how to reach me—day or night—if you need anything, right?” Aidan asked.

“I’ll never be able to thank you for everything you’ve done. You came in and took charge, which was exactly what I needed. After everything that’s happened between us that you could be so totally
there
for me…” Brandon stopped and shook his head when emotion overtook him.

“That’s all in the past.” Aidan rested his hands on his brother’s shoulders. “What matters now is the future. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you, Brand.”

“Including being my best man in September?”

Aidan smiled. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“I’d love to.”

“I’ll see you next week at Colin’s wedding. Mike would never miss a wedding.”

“That’s right.” Aidan hugged him. “Hang in there, man.”

“I’m trying.”

They got a break the next day when the three men who abducted Daphne and Mike were arrested in San Francisco’s Chinatown. All of them pointed to Eleanor as the mastermind, and the large recent deposits to their bank accounts were all the proof the FBI needed to arrest her. She was taken from her home in Pacific Heights, fingerprinted, booked, and charged with kidnapping, kidnapping a child, attempted murder, and kidnapping for hire.

Later that morning, a drawn and subdued Harrison Monroe held a press conference at which he resigned from the campaign and the Senate. He claimed to have no knowledge of his granddaughter’s whereabouts and pledged to stand by his wife until the “baseless” charges against her were dropped.

The media went wild, broadcasting the images of Eleanor being led from her mansion in handcuffs over and over again. Daphne was bombarded with requests for interviews and finally agreed to talk to the NBC affiliate, hoping it would generate some leads. She and Brandon watched the broadcast that night on the sofa in her parents’ family room.

“You did great, baby,” he said, kissing her hand.

“I look like death.”

“You look beautiful.”

“You have to say that.”

“Was it hard to talk about Randy?”

“Not really. It was such a long time ago, and it’s time people knew how he died and why.”

“Hopefully, someone will see it and help us find Mike,” Brandon said, his heart hurting when he pictured her alone and scared. The image was almost more than he could bear, and it sent a shudder through him.

“What is it?” Daphne asked.

“I miss my little girl.”

“I can’t stand to think about what she must be going through, wondering why we haven’t come to get her.”

Brandon buried his face in his hands so she wouldn’t see his tears.

She put her arm around him and rested her face against his back.

When he felt warm wetness through his shirt, he realized she was crying, too.

He reached for her, and they fell together, sobbing.

“You don’t have to hide it from me.”

“I’m so scared,” he confessed.

She kissed away his tears.

He captured her mouth in a deep, soulful kiss that chased it all away for a brief moment.